Fleeting Moments
by NotAfraid
Summary: As soon as Greg finally grasped hold of everything and got it under control, it all came tumbling back. In one fleeting moment, Greg's life had been flipped on its head again. Sequel to Affliction. ON HIATUS
1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:** Wow. I am actually back in the FanFiction world and writing again. I never thought I would be doing this again!! Well what better way to make a come back than to write a sequel to my favorite personal story, _Afflicition_. To understand this new story I would suggest reading that story first, since this is the much-deserved sequel. And don't worry...none of that crazy text stuff. I apparently had too much time on my hands when I wrote that story.

**Spoilers**: Sadly I am not the CSI-addicted fan I once used to be, but I still catch the show when I can. Obviously in my story, the story started right after season four ended which means Sara left shortly before the fifth season so because this is my story I'm gonna pick and choose what events actually occurred in the next couple years ok? It's called a writer's license of creativity or something like that I guess. Umm ok...so let's say Nick's premature burial happened not long after Sara left. So far that's gonna be my jumping off point. I'll forewarn you about any other spoilers that may occur in future chapters.

**Disclaimer**: Never have and never will own anything affiliated with CSI or CBS.

- - - -

Greg Sanders never hated having nights off after stressful nights at the lab.

Or he thinks he never hated them. He couldn't exactly remember ever having had that precise thought, but the gnawing feeling in his deep subconscious told him that's what he thought. The same gnawing feeling that told him to buy Blue Hawaiian versus Maxwell house at the grocery store, or that for some reason the scars on his back were tied to the reason why he got that eerie feeling whenever he was in the DNA lab.

But the bottom line was this: until tonight, Greg never dreaded his nights off. Especially after the trying week him and the newly rejoined team had just had. Seeing Nick...just thinking about it sent shivers down Greg's spine and he pushed the thoughts from his head. It was his night off to detox from the past 72 hours and he wasn't going to spend it reliving the hellish nights over and over...at least he wouldn't if he had any say in it.

He peeled off his shirt and tugged at his belt as he headed deeper into his house towards the haven of his warm bed. Instinctively reaching for each light switch to flip them off, the young CSI stifled a yawn, kicking off his Doc Martins on the inside of his bedroom door. From his back pockets he pulled out his wallet and company-issued phone and dropped them on his bedside table. Pulling his blackout curtains shut just as the sky started to turn a deep purple color, he heard it. A buzzing noise from somewhere behind him. It only buzzed for a second, catching Greg off guard. He turned around as it buzzed again, his eyes flying to the screen on his phone, flashing a white color as the buzzing noise went off for a third time. Cocking his head to the side, he reached for the night stand, picking up the offending item. The screen read "Private Number" as he flipped open the phone, confusion written on his face.

"Hello?"

No one replied. He could faintly, maybe, hear a voice on the other end but he couldn't be sure.

"Sanders."

Again no reply. He pulled the phone away from his ear, staring at the screen before shutting it, dropping it back down next to his wallet again before crawling into the bed. His thoughts strayed to the plexiglas hell Nick had just been in before falling into a deep, much needed slumber.

- - - -

Days, weeks, and months went by. Nick, after investigations and dead-ends and trials and visits to the Clark County jail, finally received justice for his horrendous near-death experience and Kelly Gordon soon becomes a taboo phrase among the nightshift. Not long after all the hell had died down, Greg would find Nick standing on his doorstep on their nights off, or would come home after shifts only to find the Texan's car parked out front of his cozy little house.

On this night though, the first night in close to six months that Nick had bothered to call ahead and ask if it was ok if he came by, Greg could sense something was different. Both men climbed from their cars, walking to meet each other at the front of Greg's driveway. Nick shoved his hands in his back pockets, his CSI vest reading 'Stokes' still on. He could not, would not, make eye-contact with Greg, instead choosing to kick his foot at a weed growing up between the cracks in his colleague's driveway.

"Hey Greg."

"Hey."

And it fell silent again. Nick's eyes dropped down to his feet again. Greg studied Nick's body language, trying to figure out what was going on. He could tell something was on his friend's mind and it was eating away at him. "Want to come in?" Greg pointed over his shoulder at his house, trying to ease the tension slowly building between the two men in the driveway. "We can have a couple beers and talk...if you want."

Nick still wouldn't look at Greg and Greg can feel his eyebrows furrowing in confusion, as Nick mumbled something under his breath before looking up at Greg with his good ol' Boy Scout grin. "Or I could come in and teach you how a real man plays Madden."

And just like that, everything was back to normal. Nick walked past Greg, slapping him on the back as the two men walk inside. Nick dropped into his favorite Laz-y-Boy as Greg walked into the kitchen, grabbing two beers from the fridge. As he crossed the threshold from his little kitchen to the living room, an odd sense of déjà vu hit him. It actually threw his world to a tilt so bad he felt himself stumble backwards, knocking into the breakfast bar, as one of his Corona's slipped from his hand and shattered on his wood floor.

"Greggo, are you ok?"

But it wasn't déjà vu really. It was like someone took a textbook and hit him upside the head, rattling a memory loose from somewhere in his brain. Somewhere so deep it felt like it was the same place that the gnawing feeling had been coming from...

_"Star-1 Uniforms. It's the biggest uniform shop in town. From casino dealers to cops. Shirt's wet."_

_"I found it in a drain."_

_"Where exactly?"_

_"Two blocks west of the house."_

Greg shook his head and looked up to find himself sitting on a barstool, Nick's hands resting on his shoulders. But Brass's voice echoed in his head, the feel of the thick Vegas heat making him feel flushed. He could sense Grissom in the short scene somewhere but was yanked from him memory by Nick's contact.

Wait, a memory? He didn't have those. Not since...

No. That was one of his earliest memories he still clung to but he couldn't do that to himself. His first year of memories consisted of the hospital and pain and Sara and Alicia Marie. After struggling with not being able to remember hardly anything before that day he woke up in the hospital with tubes down his throat, he spent the year after Sara's departure trying to push the only memories he had out of his head. And all this time later he had nearly succeeded. But not quite...

No.

No. Not now. Not here in front of...

"Greg are you crying?"

Too late. He was. Greg hadn't thought about Sara and Alicia almost all week. Hadn't thought about either of them. Sure, after the accident he could remember certain things, but as time wore on he had a hard time clinging to what he did know. Sure he knew dates, but he couldn't apply many of them and soon his mind tossed them in the trash. Over time, his brain began throwing away more and more of his memories until he started seeing a therapist. By then, Sara had been gone for almost a year and a half and the only thing Greg felt he was capable of was remembering how to do his job and make coffee.

Dr. Peterson called it anterograde amnesia. Apparently his retrograde amnesia had become..._this_. He couldn't remember memories from before the accident but was unable to form new ones. The trauma of Sara leaving with Alicia had thrown his brain another curve ball, one that Grissom didn't think he could handle. But it wasn't until Greg was in the middle of running a lab test three months ago and he suddenly forgot what he was supposed to do next did Greg seek out professional help, much to the delight of Grissom.

Somewhere Nick was calling out to him and Greg couldn't care. This curve ball, this new one life was throwing him, this was something Greg didn't even know what to think about it. All he was doing was having a beer with Nick, chilling out after work, and _BAM! _a memory fell out of the sky, a memory that triggered this odd sense of more memories sitting on the tip of his proverbial tongue.

"...Greg? Greg talk to me, please."

"I remembered."

Nick took a step back, studying Greg for a second. His hands were planted on his hips, watching Greg. He wasn't quite sure what to think. The nightshift had come to terms with Greg's memory problems a long time ago and supported him thru everything that had followed the tragic crime scene that had nearly cost him his life. They never asked questions. They never expected anything more than what he gave them every day, because they knew that was all he could. All he had. Even Catherine, who had become their mother figure on shift never insisted on babying him. Insist that he take it easy, take time off. She never pointed out when his eyes had sunken into his face or was deathly pale. They all just let him be.

It was another moment before Nick said anything. Greg could hear the gears turning in his friend's head as he attempted to process those two words. "You remembered?"

"Yeah Nicky...I remembered something."

"Was it..." Nick wasn't trying to step on anybody's toes but he had to ask. Maybe asking questions would trigger something else; set off his lost memories like an avalanche. "Was it something important? Or just a memory?"

He couldn't tell. But as he tried to recall the memory, more came back to him, another swing to the back of his head. Greg swayed in spot once more, balancing himself on his counter. He didn't exactly know how to pull more memories out of thin air like his brain just had; all he could do was replay the memory over and over again, hoping more would come back to him.

It began to work. The more times he played it over and over, the deeper he dug, led to more pieces of the puzzle being put together. "You and Grissom were staring at me. I was in my lab and I looked up and you were standing there across the hall with Grissom. And..." he was digging deeper than he ever had before. Maybe this was something important. Maybe this is why his brain was letting his have it back. Maybe this was...

"I had to climb down a storm drain." And all of a sudden Nick laughed. He burst out laughing at Greg. He remembered that day. Remembered when the two of them had sent their lab rat out into the field to find a soda bottle that had been used as a silencer, and all he had found was a cop uniform. And that's all he could grasp from his jumbled mess of neurons that held his memories hostage. As fast as it had hit him, as fast as that door to his past had opened, it was gone...closed, slammed in his face.

"Of all the first memories to come back to me, it had to be that one."

Nick, who's laughing had died down to a quiet chuckle, shook his head. "I agree, but at least it's a start, right?"

The two men sat there for a minute or two longer, not saying anything. Nick moved to grab another beer while Greg slid from his chair to clean up the mess of sticky alcohol and glass on his floor. He wasn't sure if his sudden recollection was something to wave off or if it was a sign of things to come.

As the two men settled into their respective chairs and began playing Madden, Greg couldn't shake the uneasy feeling in his stomach. A feeling that Greg should have listened to sooner than he would...


	2. Chapter Two

**Author's Note**: I know the story started off a little slow, slower than you or I would have liked, but I hope you stick around because it will get better. Just some ground work every author has to lay down sometimes. There will be plenty of drama and Greg/Sara for everyone I promise!! I've been doing some revisions (this A/N being one of them) now that I have a couple of chapters up and I've gotten that icky rust off my hinges from now writing for so long...why didn't someone tell me I had so many mistakes?

- - - - -

A week passed without Greg having another memory episode. Nick continued to check in with Greg once a day, trying to support Greg in his recovery. Greg just thought Nick was trying to reinvest his hope that "good things happen to good people" and the youngest CSI was willing to be his lab rat...no pun intended.

Greg headed into the break room before shift, his eyes falling upon Warrick and Nick impatiently waiting by the coffee machine for his arrival with the Blue Hawaiian coffee beans. On the couch was Catherine with Brooke, the CSI who had come to replace Sara just weeks after she had left for San Francisco. Sure Greg had been a bit hesitant at first but Brooke had been a nice addition to the night shift.

All five team members settled, caffeine in their systems, on the couches, joking around with each other. The laid-back atmosphere was only broken by Grissom's hurried entrance into the room, assignments in one hand with files tucked under each arm. He was glancing down at the slips, mumbling to himself. Greg snickered and his boss's head snapped up to stare at his awaiting team, looking slightly overwhelmed.

"Sorry I'm late. Ecklie is on a rampage about some ink shortage." When he noticed the confusion on his colleague's faces he waved it off. "Anyway...Nick and Greg I need you to take a suspicious circs drowning at a community center just outside Henderson. Catherine and Warrick, costume party disaster at a club on the strip. Brooke, you're with me."

"Oh great. Please tell me we have a case and I don't have to sit around and get chewed on like a dog toy all day with you by Ecklie. But I mean 'chewed on like a dog toy' with the upmost respect of course, sir." Nick and Greg couldn't help but laugh out loud as they walked out of the break room towards their cars as Grissom shot Brooke a look of bewilderment, her arms up in a mock surrender. "I'm just saying, I'll tag along with the boys if that's the case."

Nick may have been listening for Grissom's retort, but at that moment Greg's phone rang. He stopped so suddenly Nick nearly collided with him in the middle of the hall. Greg, instead of answering his phone, merely stared the the screen. It read 'Private Number', just like it did last week.

"What's up G? Some girl stalking you?"

Greg shot Nick a _That's not funny_ look before answering. "This private number keeps calling me. But as soon as I pick up, no one answers. It happened last week, the night before you came over and I schooled you at Madden." Greg smiled at Nick, his signature grim lighting up his eyes. Something Nick was glad he didn't lose when he lost everything else.

"Ha, whatever helps you sleep at night Greg," Nick retorted just as Greg answered the phone.

"Sanders."

Greg glanced up to see Nick had continued to walk so he quickly caught up, keeping the phone to his ear. "Hello?" he asked again, still not getting a response. "Listen, you obviously need something cause you keep calling me." Pause. "Hello?!"

The two men climbed into their Denali just as Greg actually caught words on the other end of the phone. "Oh crap," then a quick click, the other line going silent. Greg flipped his phone shut and tossed it on the dashboard, leaning against the window.

"You ok G?"

Greg nodded. "Yeah I just want to know what all the phone calls are about." He reached over and flipped the radio on, only to have country music assault his ears.

"Don't you dare change that station Sanders. This is a great song."

"Yeah well, make sure to write that in my case file when I die from a bad music overdose."

The two men laughed as they pulled out of the LVPD parking lot, heading towards their crime scene.

- - - -

At first it was a just like he had been shocked. The static between the dust and his gloves could have made him feel that way. But when he stood straight up, peeled off his gloves and it happened again, he knew it was something more. Slowly but surely, little sound bits not accompanied by visual memories began coursing thru his ears. He could hear Grissom asking him why he rambled (to which he could hear himself reply _Because you make me nervous_). He could hear a CSI shoving an evidence cart out of his DNA lab into the hall, yelling at him, the sound of glass vials shattering. Warrick talking to him about Holly Gribbs.

Greg could feel his knees weakening, beads of sweat forming along his hairline. His heartbeat began to increase, making his breath labored. What was happening to him?

Then he could _see_ Catherine and Eddie in the halls of the lab, arguing; Eddie nearly hitting her, shoving her. Nick in his lab, playing 'Name that Chemical Compound' and loving it. He remembered Grissom coming in and turning off his Manson music. He watched the sunrise from the roof of the LVPD Crime Lab and being joined by Sara. And with that image, the image of her stumbling across him on the roof by accident, Greg felt that feeling he had the week before, about being right on the verge of some bigger, better, more important memory.

"Greg you about ready to head back?"

He snapped his head up, hearing Nick yelling to him. The image of the Vegas horizon disappeared as he stared across the pool at Nick, hands full of evidence. Greg nodded and headed towards his kit, preparing to head back to process their evidence.

When he had a chance, he would have to talk to Grissom.

- - - -

Grissom was lost in thought, his back to the door. Having just ended a phone call with the San Francisco crime lab, he hadn't noticed he had someone now standing in front of his desk until they cleared their throat. "Are you busy?"

Gil turned around, giving Greg a once-over before signaling for him to close the door and take a seat. "Hello Greg. Shift go ok with Nick?"

"Yeah. I just...I needed someone to talk to. Someone who would just listen and–"

Greg was cut off by his phone ringing, and he could only guess what the screen would read. He flipped it open without even glancing at the caller ID. "Seriously this is getting old. What do you want?" Grissom was a bit taken back by Greg's demeanor but Greg waved it off like it wasn't a big deal. "Hello? Hello?!"

Click.

With a sigh, Greg snapped his phone shut and set it on Grissom's desk. Grissom gave Greg a look like he was expecting an explanation but the look he got back from his CSI told him he wasn't getting one. "So as I was saying, I just needed to talk to someone who would just listen until I had nothing left to say." Greg looked to his boss for a sign to continue.

"Ok. Well what is it you wanted to talk about?"

"What was I like before I was hospitalized?"

Grissom nearly fell out of his chair. Of all the things Greg could have talked to him about, he wasn't expecting that. Although all of the drama stirred by the crime scene, Sara's pregnancy and her later departure, had been quite public in the lab, no one ever talked to Greg about it. His memory issues had always been a very off-limits conversation, even when he wasn't around. Fortunately everyone, including Ecklie, had supported Greg in getting back on the right track and letting health and nature take its course with his memory and overall recovery. There was no point in waiting around for something to happen. If Greg was meant to regain his memories it would happen on its own, not while he sat around everyday collecting pity. And while it had taken quite some time for Greg's personality to grow back, it had been one of the first signs to Grissom that in the end, everything was going to be ok. He even started wearing his hair the way he used to.

But when all of the memory issues rose to the surface not long after Sara left, Grissom was worried he would lose his CSI to memories he couldn't keep or have, as well as the fear of him falling into a deep depression, were a constant at the front of Gil's brain. But amazingly, Greg started the therapy with a grain of salt and soon found it to enhance his life, helping him cope with the loss of Alicia and Sara and his memories.

So when Greg actually wanted to talk about _it_, Grissom wasn't really sure where to start. Sure he knew at some point he would have to have this conversation with Greg, but he had never really thought about when it would take place or what he would even say.

"You were the light of the lab. When we first hired you, you were working in the DNA lab. You always had your music blasting, hair done up crazier than you wear it now." Greg grinned and so did Grissom. "And when you gave us results, you used to play these games with us. To this day I think everyone's favorite is 'Name That Compound' and–"

Greg cut him off. "I remember that."

The man was stunned. "You...remember?"

The young CSI just nodded, eyes dropping down to the desk, his right hand straightening the miscellaneous papers strewn across it's surface. "Yeah. I, uh, tonight at the scene." He looked up to find Grissom staring at his, hands steepled under his chin. "I remember you used to turn off my music all the time, or yell over it to have me do it. But mainly you got a kick out of hitting the power button when I was right in the middle of my drum solos with my back to the door."

Grissom arched his eyebrow. "You remember all of that?"

He shook his head. "Not directly remember it, but more of like an inference. I can't pull one specific memory to the surface but I remember it happening. Like a mixture of instances combined."

"Was that all you remembered?"

"I remembered searching for a soda bottle and instead found a cop uniform in a drain. I remembered that the other night when Nick came over."

Grissom sat for a moment, thinking. "How did you remember it?"

"Uh, it was like, you know, one of those..." Greg waved his hand in the air. "Like one of those flashback moments movie characters have. One moment I was leaving my kitchen and the next, I was standing in the lab with you and Brass, covered in dirt and sewer stuff. Then, as if it had never happened, I was sitting on a chair with Nick trying to bring me back to reality."

"Anything else?"

"Yeah. Holly Gribbs' death. You getting mad at me because I would ramble and fidget when you came to get your DNA results. Catherine and Eddie arguing in the hallways. But it was a mixture of hearing the memory and actually seeing the memory, my brain replaying it like a movie."

He wasn't sure what had triggered it, the sudden change. Maybe the wall hiding all the memories from him had started to crumble, giving way to the days of holding them back. Maybe Greg's subconscious was beginning to heal after all this time. But what Grissom did know was things with Greg were going to be ok.

"Are you coping so far?"

"Yeah. Yeah. But I wanted to come talk to you about something else. Vent really, ramble a bit. But I've been thinking about Sara since this flashback I got. And I've...I've been thinking. I don't really know what I'm trying to get, or whatever. Oh god." Greg stood up suddenly, pacing behind his chair, rubbing his hands up and down his face, running a shaky hand thru his hair. "Never mind, never mind. It was a stupid–"

"Greg, spit it out."

"I want to try and contact Sara."

"Oh." Grissom thought for a moment, watching Greg halt his pacing, walking over to Grissom's door, peaking between the closed blinds slits. "Is this about you starting to regain your memories?"

Greg let the slits drop back into place as he sat back down, rubbing his a face a couple more times. "Yes. No. I don't know."

The older man leaned back in his chair, reclining it. He watched Greg heave a sigh of defeat as he dropped his head to his hands. His former DNA tech look stressed and tired, slight shades of purple forming under his eyes. The man's shirt hung from his shoulders, fingers wavering a bit as they held up his forehead. Greg trembled a little bit, sniffling coming from his dipped head. Grissom could only begin to imagine how much it was weighing down on Greg, all this newfound knowledge flowing back to him at random intervals, of useless video clips and sound bits. Grissom was at a loss of words, really not knowing how to comfort the man. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

Greg lifted his head, wiping at his nose, and Grissom noticed his damp eyes. The man shook his head in defeat, lifting himself up from the sunken chair. He made his way towards the door silently, pausing before he grabbed the handle.

"Will I feel any different, once I remember everything?"

Grissom thought for a moment. "I'm sure you will a little bit. So much of who you are is based on what you've been. Once you know what you have been again, you might make more sense to yourself."

Greg turned around once, nodding once at his boss before venturing back into the crime lab. Grissom sat for a minute more before picking up the phone, making a phone call to a friend. He listened as it rang a few times, only to be interrupted by a voice on the other end.

_"Hello?"_

Without even dignifying the voice with an answer, he blurted out his message. "He's beginning to remember."

There was a pause before: _"What?"_


	3. Chapter Three

**Author's Note**: Not to get your hopes up but Sara isn't in this chapter either. I promise this story will, at some point, be a balance of both Greg and Sara but starting next chapter, you get a few dedicated chapters for Sara before their stories start to overlap and then the real fun begins!!

Oh and yes, more revisions. I am adding a few things here and there as well but nothing that changes the story by any means. But if you want to read the new and improved version of this fabulous story, go right ahead.

- - - - -

"I remember my childhood. Or what I think is all of my childhood."

Grissom looked up at Greg. It had been almost three months since Greg and him had the discussion in his office about who he used to be and how his memory was starting to come back. As Greg walked in and dropped down in the chair, a case file in hand, Grissom dropped his pen on a stack of paperwork. "And?"

"And I do feel different. The coolest part? I was just watching TV when I saw Speed Racer on Cartoon Network and I laughed and remembered how I watched it as a child. It wasn't like I had any big flashback, it was just like I knew it like I always had. Like I never lost it. That's what was weird about when I finally watched TV for the first time after my accident and I couldn't remember what I liked watching so luckily my TiVO did but it was just cool that I woke up this morning and remembered how I grew up. So to test out to see if it was for real I called my Papa Olaf and he asked me some questions and–"

"Greg, you're rambling."

"Sorry." He paused just long enough to grin and bounce a little in his seat, much like a young child would do. "But maybe this is for real Grissom. Maybe I really will be me again at some point. Do you think so?"

Grissom had been too busy thinking about what was before him to really pay attention to Greg's rambling. This was the most he had ever seen Greg be Greg in almost two years. The grinning and the fidgetiness and speed talking and that grin...it was eerie. He smiled to himself as he thought back to the last time he had seen Greg since before the accident and began to thank whoever was up there for returning Greg to him.

"Gris?"

Grissom snapped his head up. "Oh, uh, yes. I do. I do think that over time, you will regain most of what you have lost. From what I can see, you have started to slip back into your old self."

Greg's head tilted to the side, his face lighting up with his half smile. "I decided not to try and call Sara."

Just like that, the atmosphere in the room shifted. He half expected Greg to sober up a little, but the grin never faded from his face. Grissom knew it had been eating away at his young CSI for the past three months at least, most likely the past two years, but he seemed to be ok with it. In fact, he seemed quite happy about it. "What changed your mind?"

"She's the one who left."

"Ok." He could feel it coming. "But..."

"But she left because of me." His eyebrows furrowed as he tried to figure out, again, how he had reached his excellent logic just last night. "So maybe I should call. Maybe I have to make the first move, so to speak. But I think she partially left out of guilt for what happened. In the end actually, I should be waiting for her phone call. No, I'm not going to call her. I'll wait for her. I can deal with her not being in my life."

"Are you happy with not having her in your life?"

Greg crumbled before his eyes. "No."

"What is going to make you happy?"

It was a moment before he answered. "Building a time machine and going back to the day of that crime scene and telling her no, that I couldn't help with that scene."

"What's Plan B then?"

"Being a father to Alicia. Marrying Sara. Remembering."

And there he was again, watching Greg shove his way out of his chair and pacing the small, cluttered office. But he could pick up on old Greg's little habits.

_Old Greg?_

That is indeed what he had become to Gil. Even if Greg regained all of his memory, he would be the new Greg. There would always be the old Greg and new Greg to Grissom. To everyone else. He could wear his hair the same way, listen to the same music, have the same clothing style, crack the same jokes, play the same games as before, but it would never go back to the way it was before. Ever.

Grissom looked up to see Greg studying his butterflies pinned up in their shadow boxes, fingers grazing along the glass. "I felt like this for a while. Like I was pinned up for everyone to study. To examine. To freakin' _pity_. I never want to be like that again Grissom. And part of me knows that if I tried to right my life and win Sara back, everyone is going to be sitting there; watching, examining, whispering, waiting for me to fail again. Because that's what happens to Greg Sanders. He finally begins to get out in the field and what happens? I didn't even know who I was, that's what happened. And even before that, he starts to get his shit together in the lab and what happens? He blows himself up." He subconsciously rubbed the wounds on his back. His eyes met Grissom's for a split second, and he could see the panic in his boss' eyes. "Yeah I remember that. I remembered it in a dream the other night. I had this dream and it was just my memory playing over and over again. And when I woke up I just _knew_ that's what had happened. That gap in my memory magically filled and I just knew, like I had never forgotten in the first place."

It was happening so fast, after so much time of nothing happening. Of Greg struggling and fighting and losing and nothing coming of it. When he had finally just accepted it; accepted his life and lack of memory and loss of love. When Greg had finally gotten his life back on track, settling into his routine after all this time. As soon as the man finally grasped hold of everything and got it under control, it all came tumbling back. In one fleeting moment, Greg's life had been flipped on its head again.

"I remember everything about the case Grissom. I remember the drugged haze of everyone visiting. Catherine telling me everything that had happened; how it was her fault. I remember the feeling of the glass under my face and hands, my back and face burned. I could feel my body spinning through the air, smashing the glass as I was thrown thru the wall and dumped carelessly in the hallway. And I can see Sara, not that far from me, and the panic and terror in her eyes before I passed out. I have to live that again Gris."

Greg dropped back down into his chair, grabbing his spiked hair in his fists. "Why is this happening?!"

"Greg..."

He put his hand up to silence the older man. "Don't _Greg_ me. Please. I don't want or need any more pity. I just want everything to be back to normal."

"Greg. Things can't be–"

"I know, I know. Things can't be normal again."

"I'm sorry Greg. I really am."

"It's all coming back so fast. I just remember things all of a sudden and I don't even realize it. I was talking to Nick about how he had been hearing this weird noise at his house and jokingly said something about Nigel Crane and he gave me this weird look and I realized what I said. I don't remember remembering it, but I know I didn't remember the Nigel Crane incident before that moment."

"How are you doing with remembering the lab explosion?"

Greg shrugged his shoulders, throwing his hands up in emphasis. "I don't know. I don't know if I'm going to cope again. I mean, I already did once. It's not like I'm reliving it again. I can just put that nagging feeling and my burns together I guess." He stared at Grissom, trying to get a read on what the other man was thinking. Greg could her the man's thought wheels spinning inside his head.

The two men fell into an uncomfortable silence, maintaining eye contact, as the two men tried to read the other. Greg leaned back in his chair, thinking, trying to peg out what things he may have remembered just sitting and talking to Grissom. But after a few moments he realized it was a futile effort. The thick silence was shattering by the ringing of Grissom's office phone. The older man glanced at the caller ID for a moment before looking back at Greg. "I have to take this."

Greg nodded in understanding, reaching for the case file he had dropped on the floor at some point during his small breakdown. "I'll come talk to you later this week. Thank you." Grissom just nodded as Greg slid out of the office, the door clicking shut behind him.

Grissom waited another moment before answering the phone. "Grissom."

_"How is he?"_

Grissom shrugged to himself. "Better. His memory is coming back to him like someone opened a flood gate."

_"No. How is he. C'mon Grissom you know what I'm talking about."_

He paused for a moment, gently weighing out his options. "On one hand, he is eating up his new-found recovery. Loves it and everything it stands for. Greg is slowly going back to normal after more than two years. He is finally shedding that last shell left over from the accident. The one that left him speechless for months and months. That withdrawn, shy side of Greg that nearly became him after everything that happened. After you left.

"You destroyed him Sara."

The other end of the line fell silent. Grissom had hit a nerve with Sara Sidle and he knew it. Over the years, Grissom had learned the limits of all his CSIs but he knew Sara's better by far. He waited patiently, giving her time to take a deep breath and reorganize her thoughts.

_"Listen I don't need the lecture. I blame myself every day for what happened. You know why I left Gris. You know what I was battling with every day."_

"So he is the one who has had to pay for the past two years because of a mistake you made? It happened, he survived. We've moved on. You are back at your old crime lab, Greg is a great CSI, and little Alicia seems to look more and more like her father every time I see a new picture of her. I must say her sandy brown hair goes well with those–"

_"Cut the crap, Gil. What else is going on with him?"_

"The more he remembers, the more the gap you and Alicia left in his life grows. It won't be long before he starts remembering his relationship with you from before the accident, if he hasn't already begun to."

_"Has he? Has he started to remember anything about us?"_

"Do you really think he's gonna tell me if he has?"

He could hear her frustrated sigh back in California. _"Every day I look into my little girl's eyes and I'm reminded of my biggest regret and my most painful heartbreak ever."_ A pause before: _"I still love him. Two, going on three, years later and I haven't been able to even consider another guy. Because I don't want a man other than her father in Alicia's life. I miss him Grissom and I love him just as much as the first day I kissed him. I'm going insane without him. And he needs me Gil. He needs me and Alicia to help him thru this. I can't keep secretly calling you for updates Grissom. I'm not twelve anymore."_

"Are you going to do something then?"

- - - -

She found him on the roof. She had been wandering around the lab looking for him when Archie tipped her off as to where her colleague was. She climbed the stairs and pushed open the rusty roof access door and saw him across the building at the far end, standing ten feet back from the edge, fingers intertwined on the back of his neck.

"Hey," she called out. Greg didn't react to the sound of her voice, just continued to stand there. Catherine walked over to his side, admiring the view from her workplace. Apparently Greg had stumbled across the same silent oasis she had found years ago. "I hope I'm not interrupting."

He shook his head. "Naw. Just reminiscing."

She nodded. Everyone on nightshift had been told about Greg's sudden recovery, a juicy piece of office gossip that was strictly forbidden from making it to the lab rats. Everyone supported him of course, but instead of in-your-face support, they had just taken a step back to give him space, something of which Greg was thankful of. "If I may ask, is it about something in particular or are you just brooding and staring at the sunrise?"

"Sara and I had our first kiss up here." Greg took a deep inhale and slowly let it out as the memory rose to the surface of his mind again. Her smell, her taste, the tingle his lips had when she pulled away. "I remembered a little bit of that morning the other day at a crime scene, but not like I did when I came up here. I just remember her storming onto the roof, not seeing me, and looking like she was on the verge of screaming. Some case had her all worked up and she had come out here for a minute alone. I was over in the corner and she didn't notice me until I cleared my throat." He laughed to himself for a moment, remembering how it had all happened.

"I thought she was gonna jump right off the roof I scared her so bad. But instead she just broke down crying. She was _crying_, Catherine. And there I was, like some little teenage boy staring a perfect opportunity in the face to come to this beautiful girl's rescue. Of course I got all choked up for a minute and didn't know what to do, but I just walked up and wrapped my arms around her, holding her tight as she gripped my shirt, soaking it with her sobs. Next thing I know, we're kissing."

Catherine turned and smiled, and could see Greg was doing the same thing. "Sounds like a good start to a great relationship."

"But she left me." Greg spun around and stared at Catherine, looking older than she last remembered him looking. "She left me. She left me, and took my daughter with her. Sara supported me for so long and then just left me, with everything and everyone I loved. What kind of fucking relationship is that?" He's mad beyond words, fists clenched down at his sides as he tries to yell at Catherine, not getting more than a whisper to seep out of his tightly pursed lips. "Who's the real victim Catherine?"

"You both are," she answered without a moment's hesitation. "You both are suffering from the other's decisions."

"But what did I do to deserve this? I didn't do anything Catherine."

The blonde laughed and turned to Greg, her hair catching the golden sunrise just right, making her glow against the horizon. "Maybe if you weren't so love handicapped we wouldn't be having this conversation on how things used to be and should have been. Maybe if Sara knew how to ask for help sometimes she would be downstairs getting all grimy in the garage in an attempt to take one more bad guy off the street. Maybe if you both weren't so relationship challenged you'd be looking forward to leaving soon with your wife and going home to your little girl, your little Alicia. But you both made your fair share of mistakes in the past and I am a true believer in Karma. How can you not be?" Catherine turned back towards the eastern horizon, planting her hands on her hips, briefly glancing at her watch.

Greg took one last deep breath, traipsing back towards the door that led into the crime lab.

"What, no good bye or even a thank you?"

"You know I'm always thankful," he retorted, swinging open the door and stepping back inside.


	4. Chapter Four

**Author's Note**: Wow sorry about the extreme delay in posting. I lost my muse for a bit, combined with other life-threatening issues (i.e. the male race, school, family, work) and finally got angry at Sara for leaving the show. Not because I like her by any means, but now it's always about her _still_, and she isn't even part of the cast anymore!! Ugh, I give up.

Good news though! It's Sara time...

So anyway, I am going to attempt this chapter and hope I don't fail too miserably. But I hope you can bare with me through this mess I like to call "Writing from Sara's POV". And since it has been such a long time since I was two years old, or around one for that matter, I have conducted some research on two year olds.

**P.S.** Uh oh. Krazy found me.

- - - - -

She was exhausted. Her body ached in places she didn't even know she could ache. Her stomach had digested itself. The balls of her feet were numb. She was craving for an Sprite to cure her dry mouth. And actually the idea of a juicy Big Mac meal,_ large_, sounded incredibly appetizing right about now...

In short, Sara Sidle was a mess as she walked into her house, just fifteen minutes from the San Francisco Crime Lab. And today had been quite easily one of the longest fifteen minute drives she had ever made.

Sara quietly shut the heavy front door behind her, glancing at her cell phone. _6:30 am_. On an ideal day, that would give her almost and hour and a half of sleep before she had to worry about her little munchkin waking her up. She slipped off her shoes by the others piled in the foyer of her quaint suburban home. Not even caring about the mess strewn about her home, Sara sulked upstairs, stepping over the gate at the top. She glanced in Alicia's room, seeing her angel still asleep in her toddler bed, a bed too big for her little girl.

_Alicia may have gotten her father's ridiculously good looks but she definitely got stuck with my vertically-challenged genes_, Sara thought as she trumped farther down the hall. She stripped off her pants and shirt, crawling into bed in just her underwear and bra. With a long sigh, she curled up in her large bed, her fingers and toes reaching for all the cold spots under her sheets. And with one last yawn, she closed her eyes in anticipation of a much needed, and deserved, nap.

Twenty minutes later, Sara groaned at a sound that nearly brought tears of exhaustion to her eyes. "Momma!"

The sounds of little two and a half year old feet pattered across her bedroom floor, the force slamming into the side of her mattress. "Momma you're home!"

Sara rolled from her back to her side, turning her back to Alicia, this routine all too familiar to her. From the other side of the bed, Alicia's excited little body elicited tiny giggles from deep in her belly. Sara could just see her two year old daughter's body trembling with the excitement of Mom being home and it made her smile.

"Momma?" Alicia, confused as to why Sara wasn't waking up, tilted her head to one side. "Momma, you sleeping?"

She ran as fast as her little legs would allow around to Sara's side of the bed. "Momma, get up!" Alicia grabbed at Sara's closest arm, shaking it as hard as she could.

Suddenly though, Sara's eyes flew open and quicker than Alicia could react, grabbed her little girl be her sides, lifting Alicia off the ground. Alicia screamed in surprise as Sara caught her off guard, swinging her up into the air above the bed. Sara smiled to herself as she listen to her two year old screaming in fits of pure joy at their morning ritual. This was Alicia's favorite game to play with Sara: pretending to be airplane and flying above her mother. As Alicia lay suspended above Sara, arms and legs out as she flew thru the air, Sara couldn't help but notice how gorgeous her daughter was. Her brown eyes glowed as she laughed and screamed, the rays of sunrise sneaking thru the slits in the blinds making her hair glow a golden color, making it look like there was a halo atop her head. Alicia had somehow acquired a natural golden look to her skin, like a honey color, that made her stunning to Sara.

As her shoulders began to ache, Sara rolled over, bringing her little plane crashing down on the bed beside her just as her arms gave way under all twenty-four pounds of Alicia's weight. Sara wrapped her arms around Alicia, pulling her close, reveling at the warmth her tiny body was giving off. Alicia crawled under the covers before curling into Sara, burying her head in her mother's side. She listen to Sara's heartbeat, the steady pace lulling her back to sleep. Her mouth opened into a giant yawn making Sara laugh. Sara pressed a kiss into Alicia's pin-straight mess of hair before shutting her eyes again.

_Hopefully for longer than twenty minutes this time_, Sara thought to herself.

Right before Sara slipped into her deep sleep, she set her alarm clock, finally succumbing to the tiredness sweeping over her body. But not before she kissed her baby girl goodnight one last time.

- - - - -

_Greg wandered down a flight of stairs or two, his case banging against his leg. He turned to grin at Sara before disappearing down another couple flights of stairs. Sara couldn't help but grin back at her boyfriend as she heard his footsteps echo in the cement stairwell. She turned back and climbed up the few stairs between her and the top and began there. A few minutes passed before she found the hair on the railing, stuck in dried blood. And luckily for her, the skin tag was still on the end. She bagged it with a grin and strained to hear Greg processing the scene below her._

_"Don't go far!" she ordered. "Stay close and look for anything out of the ordinary."_

_Not long after her voice stopped carrying down the stairwell did she hear a door slam. Assuming it was Greg, she didn't react right away, assuming some trail of evidence had led him back into the hotel on a certain floor, maybe where the murder had actually started. But she called out anyway._

_"Greg?" Nothing._

_Sara bagged up her evidence and closed her case, wandering down towards the sound of the door. She still couldn't hear Greg and cautiously felt for the gun in her holster. After a couple of floors down she came across an emergency exit door from one of the floors and swung it open: no sign of Greg._

_"Greg?" she called out again, only to be answered by a gunshot._

Sara jolted awake, short of breath and in a panic. It took her a second to recognize her surroundings, regain her bearings, when she realized it was just a dream. A nightmare actually, but just a figment of her imagination nonetheless. She looked beside her to see Alicia still sleeping, her thumb tucked in her mouth.

It had been quite some time since she had last dreamt about the accident and it shook her up just a little bit. With the recollection came many other uneasy thoughts. Her recent conversations with Grissom was one of the first things that came to mind. It was a harrowing wake-up call that first time Grissom had called her, right after Alicia had turned one. But as time went on, she looked forward to his phone calls more and more.

Though it may have been years of torment with Grissom and her heart, in the end the two had remained true friends and Sara valued his opinion above most other people she had come to know in her life. Even during the investigation regarding the accident, when things had become strained between the friends, he had still been a steady rock in supporting her with Greg's recovery. He had kept his mouth shut about her resignation letter she handed in with her maternity leave, and never tried to talk her out of her decision. Grissom had learned many years prior that there was no changing Sara's mind when it had been made. She assumed he also became someone Greg could count on, if not Nick, during the months after she had left. When she had finally spoken to Grissom for that first time, her thoughts had been confirmed, as well as the many phone calls that followed.

Greg was not a topic Sara let her mind wander to often, but it did happen occasionally. His smile was always the image that came to mind first, accompanied by his brown spikes and mess of hair. She could remember, like it was yesterday, his eagerness to learn and please and she wondered if that had been one of the reasons she knew she could get him to come with her to that crime scene. It must have been. The thought must have occurred to her, however subconsciously it may have been, at some point. And that made her sick.

She glanced over at the clock, realizing she had to be up in forty minutes and ultimately decided to fall back asleep and enjoy a lazy morning in bed with her little munchkin.

- - - - -

Sara stood in her kitchen, listening to Grissom talk as she scrubbed some dishes from their dinner the night before. Alicia sat in the other room, perched on a cushion she had pulled off the couch, clutching her blanket. Sara peeked around the corner, making sure the munchkin was still where she had left her this morning. And she was; Alicia sat cross-legged in her footsie pajamas, sucking on her thumb. Old Mickey cartoons kept her eyes captivated on the TV screen as her mother attempted to tidy up on her day off.

But she wasn't getting much accomplished as her heart kept breaking over and over as Grissom went on about Greg's sudden recovery.

_"The more he remembers, the more the gap you and Alicia left in his life grows. It won't be long before he starts to remember your relationship with him, if he hasn't already."_

"Has he?" Sara asked, terrified. "Has he started to remember anything about us?"

It wasn't supposed to happen like this. She wasn't supposed to fall in love with Gregory Hojem Sanders. She just wasn't. That was her first mistake.

Her second mistake? Kissing him. Because when he captured her lips in his...it was all over.

And from there, the mistakes just kept coming, one after another. Her harmless crush had turned into a disaster that triggered an unforgivable series of events in both her and Greg's life. And the first mistake started off a series of mistakes. The fifth mistake? The sex. The _amazing_ sex. The eighth mistake? Bringing Greg to that crime scene. The thirteenth mistake: leaving him.

Sara threw the sponge down, wiping her hair from her eyes with the back of her free, damp hand. Grissom continued to lecture from his end of the phone, as he sat in his office in Las Vegas, a place Sara thought she would always call home. She peered around the corner once more, checking in on Alicia before grabbing her warm cup of tea and dropping down into a kitchen chair. And somewhere in Gil's response to her last question, something had triggered a response from Sara. Something he said must have hit a nerve with her because she suddenly found herself talking, admitting feelings she hadn't admitted to anyone since she had left a little over two years ago. Or at least, anyone in Vegas.

_"Are you going to do something then?"_

She didn't respond to Grissom's question right away. At that same moment though, there came a knock at her front door followed by a high pitch squeal from her family room. Alicia came scrambling around the corner, cutting thru the kitchen, her feet sliding across the hardwood floors. She had discarded her blanket by the TV and was making a beeline for the foyer. Sara pushed herself up from her chair, glancing at the time on her wall clock, realizing that it was her neighbor, Katie and her little boy Jayden, coming to visit. It was her usual Sunday afternoon play-date, but she had completely forgotten today was, well, today. She opened the door, motioning for the mother and son to come in and make themselves at home. Jayden, who was just a couple weeks older than Alicia, raced towards the sounds of the TV with Alicia not far behind. Katie offered a smile to Sara, who responded with a roll of her eyes.

"Hey Grissom, I need to call you back. My work is calling me on my cell phone."

She knew Grissom wouldn't buy it, but he still responded with a kind, _"Ok I'll talk with you soon. I send my love to my two favorites Sidle girls."_

Sara ended the call with a sigh of relief, dropping down beside Katie. "Sorry about that."

"Eh, no big deal." Katie shrugged, reaching for the Wheat Thins beside Sara. "So, was that a male friend I caught you talking to?"

"Male friend, yes."

"Is he a cute male friend?"

"Just to humor you, sure."

"Is he a dad-material friend?"

"Uh, more like a bug-infatuated male friend who is horribly wrong for me and was my former boss."

"Sorry I asked. That's just gross. Bug-infatuated, really?"

Sara nodded and Katie visibly shivered. "He was just calling me for an update on Greg."

"Ah." Katie looked like this was a conversation she was completely willing to have. She glanced over her shoulder towards their young two year olds, before turning back to Sara. She knew who Greg was of course. She had met Sara just shortly after she had moved down here, and over time had gained the woman's trust. One of the first big conversations the two women had was about Alicia's father and all that had occurred leading up to Sara leaving. But his name was hardly ever brought up and it slowly became something the two never talked about. But recently, Katie knew Sara was in contact with Grissom again regarding Greg and it hadn't been easy on her friend. "What did he have to say this time?"

Sara popped a few more Wheat Thins in her mouth, and washed it down with a swig of her tea. "I've been thinking about going home to visit him."

"Really?" Katie asked, shocked.

"Yeah. I guess Greg has begun to regain his memory and I really feel like this could be that moment I've been waiting for. To make him a part of Alicia's life; to have him back in mine." It was no secret that Sara had wanted Greg back but she had been gone for so long, so much had happened before and after she left, that Katie had never thought Sara would actually go through with bringing Greg back into her life; nonetheless Alicia's life.

Katie studied Sara for a moment, more precisely her forehead, because Sara refused to make eye contact. She just stared into her cup, swirling around the liquid inside, pouring the rest of her now cold tea down her throat seconds later. From what Katie could tell, the thought of Greg was exhausting her. Sara was never one for wearing her heart on her sleeve but today, Katie could see her friend's heart aching. "Did he break your heart that bad Sara Sidle?"

She shook her head, letting out a short laugh. Her eyes were tearing up, and she began wiping prematurely at the tears she knew were going to fall. Sara knew that across the table from her was one of the few people who was ever going to watch her cry, but right now she couldn't care. Sara kept shaking her head, trying to deny how upset Greg still made her after all of these years. But it was inevitable as tears trickled down from her face, the lump in her throat growing bigger, thicker, accompanied by the constant ache in her heart growing larger until finally, she gasped for air.

"Let it out Sara. C'mon honey, crying is ok. Just let it out."

And she did. Sara let go of her empty cup and dropped her head into her hands and began to sob. She could feel Katie watching her and didn't care for once. Sara cried harder and harder, gasping for air every couple seconds, shaking her head some more. "H-h-he..." she began, only to be cut off by her own hiccups.

"Shh Sara, you don't need to try and talk." Katie pushed herself up and out of her chair and rounded to Sara's side of the table. She wrapped her arms around Sara's trembling body, holding her close as she continued to sob. The crying turned into gut-wrenching sobs that made Katie's chest hurt. Sara was seconds away from wailing, her cries already rivaling both of their two-year olds' when they were exhausted and battling against nap time.

"H-h-he di-didn't b-br-break my he-heart," Sara managed, wiping away at the mascara streaks cascading down her cheeks. Above her hysterical cries though, Sara heard the sound of feet pattering across the kitchen floor. Sara fiercely wiped her face once more and pulled away from Katie's embrace, trying desperately to control her sobs.

Standing just a foot away was a little girl in her pajamas, gazing at the two women. Her left arm clutched a makeshift blanket of sorts; what was once an old t-shirt of Greg's had turned into comfort toy for the two-year-old. Her right thumb was snug in her mouth, pointer finger wrapped around the tip of her little nose. Alicia's brown eyes bore into Sara's thru her mess of sandy blonde bangs that hung in front of her watering eyes. Her head tilted to the right, watching her mother hastily compose herself at the kitchen table.

"H-hey sweetie pie," Sara cooed. She slid out of her chair to kneel before her daughter on the kitchen floor. "How are you? Are you hungry?"

Alicia just stared at Sara, still confused. "Momma, why are you sad?" she mumbled around her thumb.

Sara's eyes teared up again, but she just shook her head. "Momma is fine, honey."

Alicia didn't move. She continued to stare at Sara, finally taking her thumb from her mouth. In one swift movement, Alicia flung herself at her mom. She wrapped her arms around Sara's neck as far as she could. "I love you Momma. Don't be sad."

Of course, Sara's crying became renewed at her daughter's declaration, and was fortunately short lived. She explained to Alicia that she was crying because she was happy, which in turn made Alicia giggle all the way back into the family room and resume her position on her favorite cushion. She plopped down next to Jayden again, who didn't seem to have noticed she had even left her post beside him. He glanced at her casually from the corner of his eye before resuming his TV watching.

Sara viciously wiped her face once more, taking a deep breath and slowly breathing back out. It was a couple minutes before she looked at Katie again. "He didn't break my heart. I broke my own. I broke his heart." She shook her head, laughing in disbelief. "I...I can't believe I ever did that to another human being."

"You did what you thought was best Sara. You were looking out for your well-being, as well as Alicia. Hind sight is twenty-twenty for a reason Sara."

"I have to do this Katie. As much as it is going to suck, I have to do this. I have to make things right."

"Well..." Katie started, before realizing there really wasn't anything she was planning on saying. She just stared at her friend, wheels turning in her head but not really processing anything. "What can I do, if anything?"

Sara was quiet for a moment before turning to Katie with a grin. "Your husband works for United Airlines doesn't he?"


	5. Chapter Five

**Author's Note**: So as I began to brainstorm for this chapter, I had the realization that this story is probably going to end up being a lot longer than I originally intended. Oh well. It's not like any of the readers are going to complain if I drag the angst out. A couple things...the random bits of Alicia are so I have a chance to develop her personality. It plays an important part later in this story but just enjoy the cuteness of a two year old.

Taken more creative liberties with my story. Nobody strictly sticks to cannon anymore anyway.

**Today's Educational Moment**: Murphy's Law says this: Anything that can happen, will happen–at the worst possible moment.

- - - - -

Jayden and Alicia tore out the backdoor screaming, Otter Pops melting all over their tiny hands as they made a beeline for the sandbox. Their faces and mouths were dyed dark shades of reds and purples, hands covered in small streaks of blues and greens. Katie and Sara, not far behind the two year olds, whispered amongst themselves about Sara's upcoming trip. The phone call to Grissom had gone amazingly well Sara thought and he planned on picking her up at the airport in two weeks when she arrived.

_"I..I, uh, I'm coming back to visit."_

_"Mmhmm."_

_"What, you don't think it's a good idea?"_

_A shrug then: "Have you talked to Greg yet?"_

_"I called him a couple times but hung up before I said anything."_

_"Ah."_

_"You think it's a bad idea don't you? God I knew I shouldn't have decided to do this. What was I thinking?! Did I think I could just wander back into his life with his daughter and everything would be ok like none of it happened? Stupid, stupid, STUPID!"_

_"I don't think it's stupid."_

Pause. _"Really?"_

_"Really."_

The two women dropped onto the patio chairs, sipping on their Long Islands. Alicia turned to Sara and flashed her a Sanders grin. It was not a smile that would ever be found in the Sidle family tree anywhere and Sara could feel her heart melt at sight of her little girl and the idea of seeing Greg soon. "I think the initial excitement has worn off and has given way to anxiousness. I mean, I disappear for close to three years and I'm just going to wander back in to his life and expect him to be ok with it? I mean, c'mon he doesn't even really remember everything yet." Sara shook her head and gulped down more of her drink, enjoying the refreshed feeling.

Katie opened her mouth with a retort when the two women heard shrieks coming from just feet away. Alicia and Jayden had begun a game of tug-o-war with one of the shovels. Alicia was stomping her feet and yelling at Jayden. "Let go Dayden. Momma, Dayden took my shovel. I want it **BACK**!" She swung her body from side to side in a last attempt to win back her toy as Jayden made one last tug with all his might, tearing it from Alicia's hands. Sara tried not to laugh as a look grew on Alicia's face that was a mirrored image of Sara's appalled look. She looked to Katie and both women laughed. "God that pout is so _you_!" Katie exclaimed.

The look on Alicia's face kept growing, her cheeks heating up in rage. With the biggest huff and puff her two year old body could handle, hands planted on her hips and a pout on her lips, Alicia marched up to where Jayden had retreated with the shovel. The boy had already forgotten about the battle moments before and had gone back to his project on the far side of the sandbox, oblivious to the whirlwind of rage building behind him.

"Uh oh, here it–"

_Smack!_

"MOMMA!!" Both children yelled, pointing accusingly at the other.

Alicia and Jayden yelled in unison, "I want my shovel back!" Alicia made another grab for the shovel and Jayden, anticipating the sneak attack, pulled it away, sending Alicia into fits of tears. Sara pushed up from her chair and scooped Alicia up, consoling the hurt child. "Momma, Dayden won't let me have my shovel," she whined. She buried her wet face into the crook of Sara's next as her mother rubbed her back slowly, whispering that everything would be ok into her tiny ear.

"Ali, you need to learn to share with Jayden. You need to take turns with the shovel," she explain slowly. "Just because they are your toys doesn't mean other people can't play with them. Jayden shares his toys, and you need to share yours."

Alicia looked up at Sara with wet, big, brown orbs and wiped at her wet nose. "Otay Momma." Sara sighed at the sad, familiar look on her daughter's face as she set her back down on the ground. Jayden looked at his sad playmate.

"Wanna dig a hole wif me?" And just like that, the two were back to playing again as if nothing had happened.

Sara sat back down with a heavy sigh. "Could she be any more like her father?" Another gulp and: "So you were about to say something about how much of a disaster seeing Greg is going to be?"

"Ah yes. Well, I think he is only going to be half your battle Miss Sidle. There is always that thing called a child and her meeting that thing we call a father in two weeks time. A father she doesn't know exists or has never been told about her entire life. Have you even thought about that yet?" Katie asked Sara, smirking at Sara over the top of her glass.

Sara shot her look of resentment that suddenly fell to a look of utter despair. "Well thank you Katie for bringing that lovely topic up. And no...I haven't. I was actually hoping you could help me out with me." She begged Katie with her sad-looking eyes and Katie couldn't help but laugh at her girlfriend.

"God now Sara, you know I hate it when you give me that look. Jayden does it all the time to me and you know as the mother of another manipulative two year old it's a hard look to say no to!"

The two women just laughed as Sara heard her phone ringing inside. She finished off her drink, jogging back into her house just in time to pick up the phone half way thru the last ring.

"This is Sara."

_"So is it true?"_

Startled, Sara fell back a step, nearly hitting the counter. "Excuse me?"

_"Well if it isn't the same Sara Sidle I remember and adored. Still denying everything, even after all these years."_

The southern drawl made Sara's lips curl into an appreciative smile. "It looks like my favorite Boy Scout still has that same sexy Texan accent, even after all his years in Vegas. How are you Nick?"

She could picture his smile on the other end of the phone. _"A lot better now that I know my two girls are coming home."_

Nick had always called Sara and Alicia his girls, had always loved Alicia like his own, and Sara suddenly wondered what had become of Nick after she had left. Wondered if he was hurt just as bad as Greg was. "So I guess you answered your own question." He laughed that same deep, hearty laugh Sara remembered and it made her grin again. "But from what I hear you've kept yourself pretty busy over the past couple of years that I've been gone. From the sounds of it, I'm surprised you even had time to miss us."

_"I'll always have the time to miss you girls. And from the pictures, it looks like you really haven't had to miss Greggo that much. Man, does that girl have all his DNA!"_

It stung, but not as bad or as long as she thought. "Yeah. She has his energy and his stubbornness to accompany his good looks too."

In the background she could hear mumbled voices, a squeal and briefly she could hear Nick whining about something and then: _"Say it isn't so!!"_

"Hi Catherine."

More screams blared thru the phone and Sara let out a sigh, leaning back against the counter and crossing her arms. Out of the corner of her eyes she could see Katie had moved from the backyard to the doorway, casually leaning on the glass sliding door with a smug grin on her face and two empty glasses in her hand. Sara merely rolled her eyes and let out another sigh as Catherine went on and on about who knows what. All of her attention had suddenly been diverted to a squealing little girl in the backyard, running from Jayden and his sticky, sandy fingers. Sara grinned at her daughter, yelling for help between giggles that shook her body.

Before she knew it, Warrick was on the phone, going on and on about how surprised Greg was gonna be when, _"Uh, um, hey Greg."_

Sara's eyes went wide and she shot a panicked look at Katie. She straightened up, turning to face her friend, nearly dropping the phone as she could hear his voice, muffled but there nonetheless, in the background.

Distantly she could hear him ask, _"What am I gonna be surprised about Rick?"_

Sara scrambled to come up with a cover for Warrick but she seemed to be struggling with a believable lie just as much as Warrick was. "Tell him he gets to choose where you guys get dinner tonight."

_"What?"_ Warrick explained.

"Tell Greg you're on the phone with Brooke or Grissom, whoever isn't in the room, and tell him that they said he could pick dinner tonight."

_"Ok Brooke we'll see you in a little bit."_ And then he hung up.

With a deep sigh of relief, Sara dropped the phone back into its base, rubbing the bridge of her nose. Katie rounded the corner, refilling both their drinks and handed Sara's back to her. With her free hand, she wrapped an arm around Sara's waist, pulling her back outside. "Let's go girl. We have a lot to cover before you leave."

- - - - -

Greg glanced at his teammates with slight caution, the gnawing feeling in his stomach being fed by the petrified looks on everyone else's faces. "What was that about?"

Catherine and Nick looked to Warrick for an answer. "That was Brooke."

He cocked his head to the side, crossing his arms. "Thank you Captain Obvious. I was looking for an answer more along the lines of why I would be surprised."

"Because...because Brooke says you get to choose dinner tonight!" He plastered a grin on his face, hoping Cath and Nick would follow suit when:

"What did I just say?"

And of course, according to Murphy, Brooke walked into the break room at that exact moment with a stack of case files in her hands.

Catherine let out a panicked laugh before elbowing Brooke. "You know what you were just talking to Warrick on the phone about!"

Brooke, slightly confused, glanced at all the CSIs' forced grins before slowly nodding her head. "Oh yeah. Yeah of course I do. Ha, sorry, blonde moment. And I mean that with the utmost respect Catherine." She turned around to awkwardly smile at her male counterparts before exiting the room as quickly as she entered, mumbling about being on a quest for the Bug Man.

As she left, the four friends sat in an awkward silence. Greg watched her leave as Catherine, Nick and Warrick all hesitantly watched him with their eyes wide. He turned back around after a few moments, startled as his coworkers all seemed to be gawking at him, almost as if expecting his to die right on the spot. He stared right back for a few moments before shaking his head and sighing. "You guys are weird."

For the first time in a couple weeks, Greg had finally begun to feel like he was _normal_, to say the least. More and more of his memories were coming back to him in chunks while he slept, coming back to him through his dreams. Or he would just find himself recalling information like he always knew it, almost like what had happened when he mentioned Nigel Crane to Nick that one day a few weeks ago. He was beginning to remember more and more of what life was like before his accident; in fact, the more he thought about it, the only part of his memory that he couldn't recall fully was that day at the crime scene.

Sure, he had been able to identify the man who had nearly killed him, but that was only because his face had infected and penetrated all of his dreams during his coma. Now, even three years later, he would never be able to burn the image of that man's smug grin off his retinas.

Greg wandered out of the break room, after obtaining the most awkward cup of coffee ever–for no one thought to stop watching him in complete silence the entire time–before he headed back to the Trace Lab, hoping Hodges had finished with his swab. There he found Hodges, hunched over a microscope, switching out slides every couple moments.

"Do you have my results yet?"

Hodges looked up, just long enough to look at Greg with a slight Hodges' snarl, before dropping his head back down to the microscope. He pointed to the far table, not looking up again. "Second folder in the stack on the right. You're working the Hanson case right?"

"Mmhmm."

"Ok than your mystery swab was shoe polish, more specifically a brand made only by Doc Martin." If Greg hadn't had his nose stuck in his folder he would have seen the figurative light bulb click on above Hodges' head. His head shot up just as Greg began to leave the lab again. "Hey Greg?"

"Yeah," he responded, not looking up from his results or even turning back around. "What's up?" After a moment or two of silence, he did turn around and tucked the file under his arm. Hodges was wringing his hands, staring at his feet. "Did you just feel like saying my name or did you need something?"

His head shot up to stare at Greg before spinning back around and dropping his head into his hands. "It's just...I was wondering...but if you don't want to answer..."

"Spit it out Hodges."

"If you remember, do you know why you wanted out of the lab so bad? Like, when you knew you just had to get out of the glass prison you were stuck in day after day?"

He studied David for a second before pulling up a stool. "It had to do with a combination of things Hodges. And yes I remember. The biggest trigger was the lab explosion, but it was more than that. I wanted to see the other side of this job. I wanted to be out there making a difference. And I know DNA is a big part of solving a crime, but I wanted to do more. I wanted to put a name to all those DNA swabs I had coming in and out of my lab. I wanted to be able to relate to Nick and Warrick. Wanted to see what got Sara and Catherine all riled up day after day. I wanted to impress Grissom, show him I was capable of more. I wanted to take on more responsibility. And fortunately for me, the CSI trainee position had just become available."

Hodges nodded, taking it all in. He looked at Greg, glad to see his Old Greg coming back. Every Sanders joke, hairdo, and outfit was one more sign that everything was going to be ok. "Do you ever regret it?"

And there was that smile, that Greg Sanders smile that Hodges used to resent. "Not a single day goes by that I don't. Gotta go."

It's good to have him back Hodges thought as he dropped his face back down to the microscope once again.

- - - - -

Sara rounded the corner to Alicia's room, the wet little girl wrapped in a towel fresh out of the dryer. The two girls giggled as Sara dried off Alicia and dressed her for bedtime. Her third birthday was just a couple months away and Sara wondered where the time had gone. Alicia wandered to the bookcase to pick out a bedtime story as Sara picked up the mess strewn about the room, clothes haphazardly dropped on the floor, toys thrown about. Her mind kept digesting the conversation her and Katie had on the back patio just days before, about how to break the news to Alicia about her father. The two women had practiced over and over, Katie playing the perfect devil's advocate to Sara's many different scenarios as to how exactly she was going to break the news to Alicia.

She looked up after dropping the rest of Alicia's dirty socks into the hamper to see her little girl standing in front of her, Goodnight Moon in her hands. "I want this one!" she exclaimed, shoving the book into her mother's hands and scurrying into bed, grabbing her ragged comfort blanket.

Sara stared at the cover for a moment, flipping the book over in her hands and back again, trying to muster the courage to talk to her daughter. She had faced murderers, pedophiles, psychopaths, but no one had ever been harder to confront that her little Alicia Marie. "Honey, before I read you your bedtime story, Momma needs to talk to you about something."

Alicia's head tipped to the side, studying her mom, almost making Sara squirm under the gaze. "Otay. Come Momma, sit." Alicia patted the spot next to her on the bed, scooting over and tucking her thumb in her mouth.

She couldn't help but smile as she dropped down next to Alicia. Taking a deep breath, wringing her hands in her lap, she knew this had to happen no matter how much it was about to suck. "So remember how Momma told you we were going to take a trip to Las Vegas to visit some of my old friends?"

"And go on the aero-plane and fly?!" she exclaimed, bouncing up and down.

"Yes sweetie, we're gonna fly in an airplane. But there is one person specifically you're going to meet." Sara took one last deep breath before taking the plunge. "Honey, do you know what a daddy is?"

"Daddy?" She sounded confused, her expression enhancing just how perplexed she was getting.

"When you were made–"

"Made?"

"Umm..." Instead of coming up with a believable lie to tell Alicia, all Sara could think was, Where is Katie when I need her?! She didn't cover this with me! Her mind grappled for an answer and that begging look in Alicia's eyes wasn't making her brain process any faster. "Yes baby, you were made by a mommy and a daddy."

"Do I have a daddy?"

This wasn't getting any easier for Sara–in fact, it was actually getting harder than she intended. This wasn't a talk she planned on having with Alicia until she was older, until she came to Sara with questions when she understood the weight of it all. Until she was old enough to question where the other half of her parenting duo was. A talk Sara was going to have with Alicia when she came home one day and asked if she had a father. Well, she would know she had a father but really just wanted to know where he was. Why he wasn't there raising her with her mother. By then maybe, Sara would have rid Greg completely from her life (theoretically), maybe even have found a different man than she could have married before Alicia began to get old enough to retain memories of not having a father around. She could have made up an excuse, a plausible answer, to all those questions Alicia would inevitably ask one day after bounding in the front door from school.

But as she looked at Alicia right then, with Greg's eyes staring back at her, Sara began to realize how wrong that plan had been. All the lies she had begun to spin in her mind to hide Alicia from her mother's mistakes. To hide her from the ugly truth of it all: how she had become pregnant out of wedlock, nearly killed Greg, almost lost her job, and ultimately, when the going got tough, ran away from it all. Did she really think she could hide all of that from Alicia? Maybe for now, but Alicia would be an intelligent girl and eventually would ask all the hard questions; see thru Sara's carefully constructed web of lies and manipulation and know her entire life was a made up faerie tale, sugarcoated by Sara. Being honest with her, even though she may not understand right now, had to be far less harmful than lying to Alicia her entire life.

"Yes you do have a Daddy. And when we go on the airplane to Las Vegas, you're going to meet your Daddy."

"But Momma, why Daddy not live with us?"

Alicia was turning out to be more inquisitive than Sara planned and the CSI in her was proud. "Because when you were born sweetie, your daddy and I got in a big fight and we needed some time apart so I moved to this house with you to be closer to my mom and dad."

"Nanna and Poppa?"

"Yes, Nanna and Poppa. Daddy stayed in Las Vegas and you and I lived here."

"Momma, do love Daddy like I love you?"

Did she? Did she love Greg or did she love the idea of Greg? Did she love what Greg represented, a father and a husband? Or did she actually love Greg as a person and as her best friend? She hadn't been able to differentiate the two in her mind yet, or ever, since moving to California. But as she looked into Alicia's eyes and saw all of the Greg in her, she realize how she really felt. She loved Greg for everything he was and wasn't.

"Of course I love your Daddy. Why do you ask?"

"If you love Daddy then why did you leave him?"

Now a days, not even Sara could understand why she had left Greg almost three years ago. Looking back, she should have stuck it out and made things work with Greg. They could have gotten married, and he could have been there to watch his little girl grow up. He could have seen her first steps, heard her first words, helped her trade off on the long nights that Alicia woke up crying. He could have supported Sara by working while she was at home with her little baby girl. But Sara Sidle was never one to do it the easy way and usually opted for the road never travelled and here she was, three years later, attempting to make up for lost ground with her daughter, her daughter's father, and herself.

"Because honey, " Sara tried explaining. "It is a lot of big girl stuff that you wouldn't understand. A lot of stuff between your daddy and I that we have to work out."

Alicia just stared at Sara for a moment with sad eyes, both of her hands resting in her lap, picking at the loose strings on Greg's old shirt. Neither girls said anything, just looked at each other. Alicia took her mother's hand in her tiny own, and reached up to kiss her mom on the cheek. "It's otay Momma. I forgive you and Daddy will too."


	6. Chapter Six

**Author's Note**: So I have all these great ideas for this story but getting all of this mumbo jumbo crap out of the way is really slowing down my muse...please bear with me thru this. I don't know if the Crime Lab locker room has communal showers but for my story it does. This is gonna be a fairly long chapter, much longer than the others, broken up into a few different segments. I considered breaking it into two chapters but with the way it all fits together in the end, splitting it up would have defeated the point.

And I'm going to admit I had quite a lot of fun writing this chapter. I always enjoy picking on Hodges because he is such an asshole.

- - - - -

All five of them stared at Grissom and Hodges with the same look. The confused and slightly disgusted look that conveyed the same shocked and appalled thought running thru everyone's heads.

_"What?!"_ they all seemed to exclaim at the same time, bellowed out in a single breath, eyes wide. Catherine laughed soon after, nearly tumbling out of her chair in fits of disbelieving laughter. Warrick and Nick just looked at each other like it was a joke, but the looks on Hodges and Grissom's faces said otherwise. Brooke really didn't know what to think and just sat there, baffled that this was actually happening. Greg felt sick and thought he might barf all over the two men standing in the break room doorway.

Hodges lips curled into a smug smile and he crossed his arms across his chest in triumph. Grissom was looking down at the assignment slips in his hands and didn't even bother looking up. "Ecklie also said you are all to take turns training him."

"But–"

"No Nick, no buts."

"You didn't–"

"I don't have to let you finish.

"But Gris, you don't–"

"Yes I do Warrick."

"How do you–"

"Finish all of your thoughts, Catherine?" Grissom finally looked up from the slips of paper in his hands, glancing over the top of his glasses at his team, whom he could only guess was just moments away from either smacking the grin off Hodges face or finding the nearest hotel to throw themselves off of. "I know none of you are happy, and neither am I." He put his hand up to silence a now-outraged Hodges, who threw his hands down to his sides in a childlike fit. "But orders are orders, especially when they come straight from Ecklie himself. Now either you can all act like mature adults and take turns or I can pick and choose. How do we want this to go?"

They all continued to just stare at Grissom who stared back pleading with them with his eyes. Hodges continued to stand there, his arms cross again, looking at them like he owned the entire Las Vegas Crime Lab. Like they all owed him something for the years of hard work he had put in for them.

"I'll do it. I'll go first."

Everyone's heads turned to look at Greg so fast it was quite possible some of them got whiplash.

"Really?" Grissom and Hodges both asked instantly.

Hodges looked at Greg incredulously. "_You_ want to train _me_?"

A sip of now-cold coffee and, "Yeah. I mean, after that conversation a couple weeks ago in the lab, I wouldn't mind." Greg looked around, trying to keep his coffee down. He looked at Grissom who looked back with a silent understanding and appreciation. "Just, cut me some slack on the case you give me. Like, one that might involve dumpster diving or a decomp. Get Hodges started on the right foot, ya know? He needs to learn early the nitty-gritty side of being a CSI." Everyone laughed as Greg winked at Hodges, who had turned a odd shade of green and deathly pale. Even Grissom couldn't help from letting a small smirk creep out.

"Ok fair enough. Hodges and Greg, you are in luck. I just happen to have a decomp I would gladly assign you to. Also, if you need me at all today you can reach me on Catherine's phone. Mine has broken, yet again, and my replacement won't be here until tomorrow afternoon." Grissom extended his arm out towards Greg with the offending assignment slip ready for the taking.

Greg shot out of his chair and snatched the slip from Grissom before Hodges could even get a word in edge wise. "You can count on us!" Greg mock-saluted Grissom and walked out of the break room, not realizing his counterpart wasn't following.

Hodges rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, eyes darting back and forth from Greg's retreating back to Grissom's content face. "This is totally not fair," Hodges whined. He heard the rest of the CSIs snickering at him, trying to keep from busting out and laughing at his misfortune, and spun around to glare them to quit it, which only provoked their laughter more. Hodges turned back around, attempting to grovel and brown-nose his way out of this. "Isn't this like, hazing?"

Grissom seemed to mull it over for a moment, randomly handing out the slips to the rest of his team. Of course, no one move for fear of missing the battle going on right before their eyes. Grissom realized, after a few moments of deathly silence, that everyone was waiting for him to respond. He looked back at Hodges, the contentment in his eyes ever present. "True to it's definition, _subjection to harassment or ridicule_, it is. But you could always go running back to Ecklie and whine to him. That you didn't kiss ass and dirty your nose to get stuck with all the real work that a CSI does. You just wanted the glamour and the perks and, dare I say, the vest. Sure, in that case, then yes, this is hazing."

It took everything David Hodges had not to boil over at that very moment in front of everyone Instead, he took a deep breath and stormed out of the break room.

"Don't forget lemons on your way home!" Nick chirped before Hodges was out of earshot.

He visibly shuddered before disappearing around the corner towards the garage.

- - - - -

Sara, never having travelled with anyone who wasn't a capable adult before, didn't realize how difficult it was going to be getting her nearly three year old daughter through security. They had to walk through the metal detectors separately and it was proving to be nearly impossible. Alicia wouldn't wait when Sara and the airport officials told her to, and usually went running through right behind Sara. Normally it wouldn't have been an issue, but one of them was setting off the alarm, and apparently a San Fran CSI (who had proper identification) and her three year old had become the airports biggest security threat at that moment. Eventually, as the line grew longer with mumbling, pissy people, they were taken aside and scanned individually with wands.

Alicia was a fidgety pain during the entire process but was cleared. It turns out Sara, in the rush and hubbub, had forgotten to take off her belt and empty her pockets of a couple coins. She had been too concerned with Alicia attempting to pet the security dogs or the slight possibility of her running through the metal detector and disappearing into the San Francisco International Airport and ending up on a flight to Chicago, or worse, Hawaii. The idea of her angel out of her sight in a large place full of strangers made Sara nervous and jittery.

_When did I become so neurotic?_ Sara wondered. She scooped up her carry-on bag and Alicia's little backpack, mouthing apologies to any airport personnel that looked her way. _If only Grissom or Nick could have witnessed that_.

Sara reached out for Alicia. "Take Mommy's hand baby. We don't want to get separated in here. Now you remember what Mommy told you on the way here?"

Alicia nodded and let out a small yawn, her eyes taking in all the people and the giant windows with views of the runway, of the planes. "Yes Momma. No talking to strangers, stay by Momma, and no yelling."

"That's right sweetie." The two girls walked down toward their terminal, which looked fairly empty, much to Sara's relief.

The overhead speakers suddenly letting out an obnoxious warning tone before it began blaring flight itinerary for the early morning flyers. _Southwest Airlines Flight 482 to PDX is now boarding in Terminal 12. Delta Airlines Flight 290 from JFK will be arriving in Terminal 3 in 25 minutes. United Airlines Flight 731 to LAS has been cancelled._ _Any passenger scheduled for the 8:15 AM flight should report to Terminal 15 or to the nearest United Airlines kiosk for ticket and future flight information. Delta Airlines Flight 6591 to ORD is now boarding..._

She nearly ripped her hair out, Sara did. Of course her flight was cancelled, just 45 minutes before it was set to take off. Sara headed up to the United Airlines counter once she reached her terminal, grasping Alicia's hand. There was quite a few people in front of her, but she had flown enough times to know this was a fairly quick process. But as she overheard the man in the front of the line arguing with the poor woman behind the counter, she realized it may take longer than she could hope.

Alicia began swaying from exhaustion in her spot, so Sara scooped her up and dropped Alicia onto her hip, her little girl falling asleep almost instantly in the crook of her neck, her thumb tucked contently into her tiny mouth. She knew that letting her fall back asleep would come back to bite her in the ass later but at that moment, she didn't have the energy to care. Sara looked around frantically, dropping their two small bags into the chairs closest to her. The line of disgruntled passengers was slowly growing behind her and she had a feeling her long morning was about to get longer. With her free hand, she pulled her cell phone from her back pocket and quickly called Katie, telling her the news. She offered to pick the two of them up again, after dropping them off already that morning, incase they couldn't catch a flight and Sara assured her friend that she would keep her posted if anything new happened before clicking her phone shut. The unhappy man in the front of the line finally seemed to get what he wanted as he walked away from the counter, new tickets in hand. Sara considered calling Grissom but decided against it, waiting to call him once she had something to tell him.

Alicia was beginning to drool onto Sara's shirt and the wet spot began to bother her, adding to her impatience as she stood in line for another ten minutes before reaching the counter. Unfortunately, the soonest flight out wasn't for a couple hours–it didn't even begin to board until close to one. With a heavy sigh, she collected her bags and shoved her new tickets inside her carry-on. Her little baby girl had yet to move a muscle since passing out just a few minutes ago. Sara trudged over to their new terminal which was fortunately on the same side of the airport and collapsed into the first chair she could, dropping their bags carelessly on the ground. She eased Alicia from her hip to her lap, and managed to get as comfortable as she could in the poorly padded airport seats.

The little girl mumbled and for a moment it looked like she was gonna wake up but her face relaxed again and curled into Sara's protective embrace more, letting out a content sigh and was motionless again. Sara let out a sigh of her own as she glanced around at all the other people crowded in the small terminal with her. Many of them were couples and business-like men, with a few families sprinkled into the mix.

Sara reached into her pocket again, trying to disturb Alicia as little as she could. She called Katie a second time to let her know of her new itinerary and promised to call once she landed in Vegas.

_"You gonna be ok?"_ Katie hesitantly asked.

Sara snorted. "Yeah, completely," a remark so sarcastic that it probably reeked on the other end of the phone. She promised Katie, once again, that she would call if she needed her before saying goodbye and hanging up. She made a quick phone call to her parents to let them know the change of plans and they too wished her good luck with Greg. It had been hard breaking the news to her mother in tears when she still lived in Vegas but her parents had been supportive of her decision and had helped her out quite a bit when she moved back, letting her and Alicia stay with them until she found her own place.

Her next and last call was to Grissom. He would be expecting her to be boarding her original flight soon and according to the time, his shift would just be ending, given Grissom wasn't being Grissom and was heading home when he was supposed to. She was hoping to catch him in time so he could manage a couple hours of sleep before heading out to McCarran Airport to pick them up. But much to her dismay, his phone rang immediately to his voicemail. She tried again a couple times, hoping the connection was just being weird, but after unsuccessfully reaching him after a few futile attempts, she gave up and left him a voicemail. Sara, hoping she would get lucky enough, tried his direct line at the crime life, but still to no avail. She hung up before it rang over to the front reception area.

She dropped her phone in her lap, and curled up with Alicia in the chair. She could just try again in a couple hours.

- - - - -

They reeked beyond words. They smelt so bad that there was no word invented to describe the stench coming off of their sweaty bodies as Hodges and Greg traipsed back into the crime lab. The two men dropped their bundles of collected evidence in the first empty evidence room they came across and dashed towards the locker room. Faintly, Greg could hear Grissom's office phone ringing and guessed that he hadn't returned from his scene with Catherine yet. Greg stole a couple lemons from Catherine's locker–he would buy her more later–and met Hodges in the shower. Hodges was already under the steaming hot stream of water, naked with the exception of his socks, as the water cascaded down the back of him.

"You always shower with your socks on?" Greg threw a grin at David who tossed him back a displeased half smile.

"No," he bluntly answered, turning around to let the water spray him in the face and wash off the front of him. "The smell of me was just making me so sick that I had to choose between throwing up in your locker all over your set of fresh clothes or not exerting the time to remove my socks and get in the shower as fast as I could. And after our lovely day today I thought I might hold off on the heaving on your personal belongings and save it for a rainy day when you do something to piss me off." He shot Greg his angry Hodges glare, the funniest glare Greg had ever seen anyone give, before turning back around and grabbing a lemon from Greg and a bar of soap. "So consider yourself warned."

Greg just laughed and shook his head. When he began to feel light headed, he assumed it was from the combination of the steam and the smell but soon, images swam before his eyes. Faceless men in blue biohazard suits took the place of Hodges, and pressurized water hoses filled with bitterly cold water were there instead of shower heads. He wasn't in the crime lab anymore, but in a crudely constructed tent made of tarps. Greg thought that maybe he saw Sara at the other side of the tent, but the scene was chaotic. He was stripped of his clothes in seconds and was being sprayed down. She too had been robbed of her clothes but he didn't dare look because considered himself a gentleman. He thought he maybe heard the men talking about their crime scene, about some evidence Greg had found, but his head was going in a million other directions than that moment.

From somewhere overhead he faintly heard Hodges calling out for him in a voice growing with panic but that wasn't enough to tear him back from this flashback he was having. Greg almost begged his mind to delve deeper, spit more back out at him, and as the tent changed to a theme park, his excitement soon changed to terror as the avalanche of memories soon became overwhelming. The next scene wasn't nearly as descriptive as the others, it was just bits of memory. He could just remember investigation a roller-coaster car derailing and that he investigated it with Sara and Grissom. Then he remembered, rushed moment after rushed moment, many others involving Sara. They flew by in his mind, overwhelming him more and more. Hodges voice eventually began to break his trance, coming in louder and louder as the locker room slowly materialized before his eyes again. Both of their showers had turned off and Hodges stood before, grasping his shoulders similar to how Nick had that night in his kitchen.

The two men stood like that, naked as the day they were born, standing feet from each other, Hodges hands still resting on his shoulders. After a few awkward moments of silence with the two men just _staring_ at the other, Hodges broke the contact and took a step back.

"What in the hell was that?" His voice shook a little, a bit startled at what just happened before his eyes. No one, other than Nick, had witnessed one of Greg's flashback moments, and this was much stronger than any of the other times had been. Much more intense. Much more...personal.

Greg shook his head. "I just..." He looked up to see the perplexed, worried look on Hodges' face and shook his head again, running a shaky hand thru his wet hair. "It was nothing, don't worry about it."

"Don't worry about it? Greg, one moment you're peeling your lemon and the next, you go limp. Your eyes glazed over and you let out this gurgling noise. And you just _stood there_!!" His voice grew louder and louder as he got more and more worked up. "You looked like you were having an absent seizure Greg and you tell me it's nothing?!"

"Yeah Hodges, it was nothing ok?" Greg snatched his soaked lemon from off the ground and turned his shower back on. "Just drop it."

Hodges watched Greg for a moment before he too turned back around and continued to scrub his arms with the lemon. "Whatever Sanders. I know you're upset about Sara coming back but..."

Greg froze. "Sara's coming back?" He turned around to find Hodges grinning at him with that all-knowing snarky grin of his. "What are you talking about?"

Hodges just continued to grin at Greg. "What Sanders? Does the breeze from the rumor mill not blow your direction any more? I mean, you may be the only person in this lab who knew Sara that doesn't know yet." If the blank stare wasn't enough of an indication to Hodges that Greg had no idea what he was talking about, than nothing was. He scrambled to cover his tracks, and quick, before he might have to console Greg, because even in the shower he could see Greg tearing up. Anyone who was around nearly three and a half years ago knew the story and Hodges knew that Greg never really recovered. His health may have but his heart...he was so broken from Sara that you could feel it radiating off of him in waves. "Well like I said, it was just a rumor. I don't even know if it is true. That new girl in prints told me and I don't really know if I would consider her a reliable source..."

"It's bullshit," Greg said, cutting off Hodges. "It isn't true. Someone would have told me." He gulped and dropped his eyes down to the ground. "Yeah...yeah someone would have told me." Hodges could see, and hear, how hard Greg was trying to convince himself and it didn't seem to be working very well.

Greg looked back up at Hodges, his eyes dry again. "Stop spreading rumors Hodges or one of these days it's gonna get you in trouble. If you really are vying to be a CSI, Grissom won't stand for it." He spun back around, turning away from the offending, sorry eyes of Hodges. "And take off your damn socks."

- - - - -

She still couldn't reach him, and they were beginning to board the plane. Alicia had finally woken up and stood beside Sara in the long line of people to get their tickets taken. Sara kept calling his cell phone and office line until she and Alicia reached their seats. Finally, she called the front desk directly, leaving an urgent message for Grissom to call her immediately. She desperately hoped he wasn't waiting for her at the airport already but he would have found some way to contact her. The girl at the front desk, a voice she didn't recognize, cheerily took the message and hung up before Sara could even blurt out a thank you. Sara grumbled a few choice words and shut off her phone, tossing it in her bag and stowing it in the overhead compartment.

Alicia and her were fortunately seated in a row with only two seats and Sara was thankful that no one else had to be beside Alicia as she flew for the first time. Sara got Alicia situated and briefly explained to her the rules of flying on an airplane. Alicia quickly related it to the rules of driving in the car and set to coloring on the tray table Sara had opened for her. Sara buckled their seatbelts and finally relaxed for a few moments before the panic she knew was coming set in.

But not before one of the stewardesses announced that all tray tables and seats be returned to their upright positions and Alicia had a meltdown because that meant her coloring had to come an abrupt halt. Sara could hear the exhausting in her little girl's fit of rage and could feel the glares from the other passengers as she tried, with no luck, to soothe Alicia. Fortunately, as the plane began to move, Sara was able to avert her attention to the window and it calmed her down almost instantly. She let out a sigh of relief and relaxed once again, watching her munchkin ooh and ahh as the plane finally took off, insisting her mom watch with her. And she did. The two girls, mother and daughter, watched the ground below them disappear as they climbed into the sky, rising higher and higher over the airport until it was gone.

Not even the sentimental moment of sharing another first with her baby girl could help Sara shake the foreboding feeling that was slowly creeping over her. She kept feeling the urge to rush off the plane, though thousands of feet up in the air, because the finality of her decision finally hit her. Sara was filled with the sudden excitement of seeing her old colleagues and the overwhelming fear of having to face Greg after all these years. Even though it was the right choice, the hardest choice nonetheless, it didn't ease her guilty conscious for what she had done on the night of their one year anniversary all those years ago.

She could only hope Greg welcomed her back with the same open arms and kindness as everyone else.

- - - - -

Greg and Hodges met back up later that afternoon after heading home for a few hours to sleep. The crime lab had been hit with a few big cases at the beginning of last shift and all the other members of nightshift seemed to be on the same page about coming back in early to get started on their massive loads of evidence. Even Greg and Hodges' scene, which started as a basic decomp case, had escalated to a triple upon further investigation of their scene. Brooke, Nick and Warrick showed up just minutes behind them, looking just as exhausted as Greg felt. They laid the decomp jokes on heavy with Hodges but seemed to avoid Greg's eyes as much as they could. Greg would just have to pull Nick aside later and ask him what was going on, because it was almost awkward the lengths his teammates were going to avoid his gaze. Even Hodges seemed to pick up on the tension but just shot Greg that same look he had in the showers, when he was talking about Sara coming back...

As the two team splits ways, Greg reached for Nick's elbow and motioned to Hodges that he would meet him in their evidence room. Greg looked around and decided the only secluded place that he would be able to confront Nick was Grissom's office. He too had either gone home for a couple hours rest or was still tied up with Catherine, because his desk didn't seem disturbed at all from last night. Greg steered Nick into the empty room and just stared at his friend. Nick seemed uneasy as he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet and then changed to rocking side to side. His right hand itched the back of his head while the left one rested on his hip.

"What's up Greggo? Something wrong?"

Greg continued to just stare at Nick, watching his every move. He had learned to read Nick's body language over the years and could see his nervous ticks beginning to set in. Nick's nostrils flared whenever he grew panicked and was cornered. The tips of his ears grew pink and turned slowly into a shade of dark red. Another wave of red began to creep up from Nick's collar, making it look like he was about to boil over. Nick's hand twitched from one position to the next, not finding comfort in any resting place.

After letting Nick squirm for a good, silent, thirty seconds, Greg finally answered Nick. "Is there something you need to tell me Nick? Because you know I've been working with Hodges all day and he manages to hear about all the gossip and drama that revolves around this lab..."

"Naw man, don't go listening to Hodges. Do you really think there is something going on in this lab that I haven't told you? C'mon Sanders, you know me better than that!" Nick almost seemed outraged at the accusation coming from his best friend. His voice quivered with a thin level of rage and Greg took a step back, surprised at how sure he was that Nick was being honest with him. He smiled at Nick and went to say thanks when a streak of red went whizzing past Grissom's door. The red blur noticed the two men inside and quickly ran back, bracing itself on the doorway as it caught its breath. It was the new front desk receptionist, Stacey.

"Where's...Grissom?" she gasped out. Stacey looked up to see Nick standing before her and flipped him a flirty grin that Nick did not hesitate to return.

Greg rolled his eyes at the two teenagers before his eyes. "Last I heard he was at a crime scene with Catherine. Has he not come back yet?"

Without breaking her eye contact with Nick, she took a step into the office–more directly, another step closer to the Texan–and thrust a message into Greg's open hands. "Just get this message to him ok? Some woman named Sara Sidle and her little girl Alicia are waiting for him at McCarran. I guess he was supposed to pick them up but her flight got changed and her new one just arrived. Who is she, Grissom's daughter? Cause if it is I didn't know..."

"He, uh, he doesn't have a daughter," Nick managed. He took a deep breathe and risked looking at Greg.

Greg was _furious_. Pissed off. Enraged. His brain scrambled to comprehend what he had just heard but the combination of the shell-shocked look on Nick's face and the confused look on Stacey's was enough to cement the sentence into his brain for all of eternity–or at least quite a long time.

_Some woman named Sara Sidle and her little girl Alicia are waiting for him at McCarran._

_His_ Sara. _His_ Alicia. His loves. His first love. His daughter. They were sitting at McCarran waiting for Grissom. After almost three long years, his girls were just 35 minutes away from him...

_Nick. Nicholas James Stokes. "Naw man, don't go listening to Hodges. Do you really think there is something going on in this lab that I haven't told you? C'mon Sanders, you know me better than that!"_ And Greg had believed him.

Greg spun around and glared at Nick. If he had lasers that could come shooting out of his eyes to melt the Texan's face he would but the only thing he had were his words.

Stacey looked back and forth between the two men and felt it was a great time to make an exit. "I think I'm just gonna go..." She snuck out the door–leaving it wide open for all of the lab to stare at Nick and Greg's showdown–without either one of the men flinching and scurried back to her desk.

Greg continued to stare Nick down and the terrified look on Nick's face made Greg realize that he was actually intimidating the other, bigger man. Nick Stokes was not one who was scared easily but when it came to the rage of his heartbroken, pissed off, best friend, Nick couldn't be too sure what he was capable of. He tried putting his hands up in a mock surrender but Greg wouldn't have any of it. "Greg listen, I can explain."

"Oh you better fucking explain Nick. And you have ten seconds to do it."

Nick gulped and struggled to spit out even a word. "You see Greg...Grissom said...but then Catherine...and Sara insisted..."

"_You talked to Sara?!_" Greg yelled and suddenly, there was Warrick flying thru the doorway of Grissom's office. "How fucking _dare you_."

And before Warrick even had a chance to ask what was going on, Greg realized he didn't just have his words and took a swung at Nick, landing a solid punch on his jaw. Warrick flew to catch Nick as he stumbled backwards and fell to the ground. Greg clenched his throbbing fist with his other hand, oddly satisfied for having just punched his best friend in his boss' office in front of another coworker.

"Screw you," Greg spat at Nick, before storming out.

Nick gently rubbed his jaw and let Warrick help him to his feet. "Care to explain why Greg just punched you in the middle of Grissom's office?"

Nick just shook his head a couple times, moving his jaw around to loosen it up; it was definitely going to be sore tomorrow. "Hodges spilled the beans to Greg I guess about Sara coming to visit, and he didn't really believe him. So just a few minutes ago he pulled me aside and asked me to my face if he needed to know anything; if something was going on that he didn't know about and I told him flat out that I would tell him anything and everything. And then in runs Stacey with an urgent message from Sara calling from the airport looking for Grissom because her flight just arrived and she can't get hold of him. Greg flipped out and then you walked in after I let it slip I had talked to Sara and...here we are."

Warrick gave Nick his classic shocked and appalled look before he rubbed the back of his head. "Man, you really know how to break the news to the kid don't you?"

"He isn't a kid anymore," Nick deadpanned, massaging his jaw again.

And he wasn't. He wasn't their Greggo, their lab rat; Greg had been thru an immense amount of mental and emotional trauma, with physical injuries to boot, in the past five years. With a combination of the lab explosion and his accident, he had lost his memory, his one true love, his daughter, his life, and himself. Nick tried hard not to throw a pity party about his live burial because he knew at the end of the day, Greg had been thru a wringer none of them could ever compare to.

"He may be a grown man Nicky, but he'll always be our Greggo no matter what he remembers."

They stood there for a moment recuperating when a thought struck Warrick. "You don't think he's gonna..."

Nick looked at Warrick as his eyes grew wide. "I pray to God he doesn't. We have to get a hold of Grissom!"

"But I'm right here. The question is, why are you in my office?"

Never had Nick and Warrick been so thankful to find Grissom. "Why we're in your office doesn't matter right now." Grissom rose a questioning eyebrow but didn't feel as if it was best to interrupt his two CSIs at the moment.

"Than what does matter boys?"

"We, uh, we have a problem..."


	7. Chapter Seven

**Author's Note**: I just want to apologize for the long delay. With a combination of my brain going off to spawn ideas for the sequel I'm about to write for _Decaying Fantasies_, as well as struggling with my muse and directionality with this story, led to me not updating for two weeks or more. Either way, I'm super sorry and hope you all can forgive me for the long delay and slightly shorter chapter than usual.

I don't know when Greg's birthday is, even if we know it, but we'll use Eric Szmanda's which is May of 1975. Okay? Cool.

Many thanks to **Kegel** who's work I fell in love with and consistently reviews all of my chapters...thank you.

- - - - -

Alicia apparently had tossed all self control out the window and Sara was about to scream. She knew her little girl was running on pure two year old energy but it had been a long time since Sara _felt_ old. Sara tried to her best to watch for their luggage and at the same time keep Alicia from running off somewhere but it was just proving to be exhausting. It was understandable that Alicia was still elated after her first place ride but this was just ridiculous.

Their luggage finally came creeping towards them on the luggage carousel and unfortunately Alicia caught sight of a very pretty ribbon on yet another bag. Sara reached for their bag and began to drag it off when she saw that Alicia had walked away from her about ten feet and had begun crawling on the carousel in an attempt to reach the other bag. In a panic, Sara screamed out for Alicia and haphazardly dropped her bag on the edge of the carousel, causing it to knock into other people as it continued on the slowly moving path towards the back again. The overall crowd in the baggage claim area was overwhelming, even for a Vegas afternoon. Unfortunately for Sara, none of them seemed to be compassionate enough to move out of her way as she was scrambling to reach Alicia; in fact, they might have actually been moving _into_ her way. Sara considered hitting a few of them like she would have had any of them been suspects, but it was her first day back in town and she didn't want to see Brass for the first time again because she was sitting in cuffs in booking at the LVPD.

Sara saw Alicia finally make it all the way on the carousel and was attempting to get into a standing position. She was in a panic as her little girl began to move _away_ from her towards the small door that led into the back of the luggage claim area and Sara thought she might cry.

"Alicia!" She cried out, reaching for the hood of daughter's sweatshirt, even though it was way out of reach. While everything else around her seemed to move in slow motion, finally realizing to get out of her way, the carousel seemed to speed up, propelling Alicia towards her doom faster than Sara could manage to move her legs, which seemed to have turned into lead. "Alicia, no! Get down sweetie! It isn't safe up there!"

Suddenly a pair of arms reached out and snatched her daughter off the carousel and Sara feared someone had taken her little girl before she realized it was a husband standing next to his pregnant wife. The man handed Alicia to his wife before grabbing his bag: the one with the ribbon Alicia had been chasing after. Sara pushed through the last few people and scooped Alicia up in her arms, sniffing and trying to keep the tears at bay. She cradled Alicia close to her chest, kissing the top of her head.

The woman rubbed Sara's back and, with a glowing smile, offered Alicia the ribbon off of her bag. "I think this is what she wanted."

"Thank you!" Alicia took the ribbon from the woman. "Look Momma!"

"Baby, you can't run away from Mommy like that. You scared me sweetie!" Sara looked Alicia in the eyes and could tell that Alicia realized just how much she had upset her mother.

Alicia threw her arms around Sara's neck and pecked her on the cheek. "I'm sorry Momma."

Sara shook her head and thanked the husband and wife for grabbing Alicia off the luggage belt. With no intentions of getting separated from her again, Sara kept Alicia planted on her hip as she headed back to where their discarded bags lay. Much of the crowd has dispersed at this point and their bag was one of the few still going around the track. All of the energy Sara did have getting off the plane was gone and she just stood there and waited for her bag to come back around. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest and soothed herself until she had calmed down. It had been a rush for her, one that she had never felt before; showing up at a crime scene and finding the perp standing there with a gun in your face was a totally different fear than one of losing her baby girl.

A man standing nearby had witnessed the entire scene of the frantic mother running after her child and noticed her large heap of bags. He quietly got a cart from the baggage claim near them and, without a word, helped Sara load all of her bags while she continued to grasp Alicia close to her, fearing what would happen if she let go again.

Sara was gushing then, thanking the man over and over for his kindness, which he merely returned with a nod and a smile. She moved to a nearby bench and it was then did she realize she still hadn't heard from Grissom and was beginning to get worried. It was very out of character for Grissom not to be extremely punctual, and Sara could only hope he had gotten her many messages and voicemails. She was about to reach for her phone when she noticed a blur of gray speckled hair, closely followed by a whir of strawberry blonde, come rushing in a set of doors just down the way from her. Grissom and Catherine had arrived just in time, because the events of the past twenty-four hours, as well as the dread and anticipation of the next week, hit her suddenly.

The two stood there, just a few hundred feet from her, frantically looking for their friend. They both looked as if they had just come from a crime scene; slightly exhausted and still wearing their CSI vests. Catherine spotted her first and ran towards Alicia and her, the grin on her face reaching from ear to ear. Sara pulled Alicia from her hip for the first time since the fiasco and set her down on the ground and greeted Catherine with a much-welcomed hug. She closed her eyes as they started to burn with the anticipation of tears, thanking her for coming to pick them up. Grissom stood behind the two women, watching the scene for a moment, before turning to look at what seemed to be the three-year-old, female version of Greg Sanders.

Alicia's hair was done in two tiny braids that were once nice but were now just a frazzled mess. She wore the true red Stanford sweatshirt–which made Grissom grin because Sara had attended Harvard–and tiny blue jeans, with mini Nike sneakers on her feet. Her large brown eyes stared back at him, her skin a dark contrast in comparison to her mother and father's pale skin. But in the end, she was Greg's daughter. Although, to give Sara credit, Alicia's curious and piercing stare was truly her mothers.

Once Sara had tore herself away from Catherine, she stood before Grissom like she had so many times. He could see how panicked she was at heart; how worried and scared and alone she felt. Grissom pulled her into a brutal hug, holding her close as he felt her shoulders trembling against his chest. She wrapped her arms around his chest, holding on to him tightly as if he would be leave if she let go. They stood there for a minute, silent, as Catherine became suddenly enamored with the little girl with Sara. He knew she wasn't crying, yet, but understood. Well, at least tried.

She wiped her eyes as she pulled away from her, thanking him with a shaky smile. "C'mon, I want you to finally meet Alicia."

Alicia was giggling with Catherine just a few feet away. Catherine seemed to be occupying Alicia's short attention span with all the nifty things hidden away in her vest, but Alicia was completely distracted with the flashlight. She turned and flashed the light in Sara's eyes, giggling. Sara couldn't remember if she had ever let Alicia play with her flashlight; she remembered using it one night to make shadow puppets on the wall for Alicia when she couldn't sleep. She shrugged and missed the days when everything and everyone was amusing to her.

"Ali, I want you to meet some of my mommy's friends. This is Catherine and this is Grissom." Alicia looked at them with twinkling eyes and a brilliant smile.

"Momma, Catrin let me play with her light. Look Momma!" She clicked the button on and off a couple times, giggling to herself again. Catherine looked at Alicia like she was the cutest thing she had ever seen. Grissom grabbed her cart of luggage–and Alicia's car seat, which Sara had remembered to bring at the last minute–and led the three women towards the parking garage where his Tahoe was. Sara picked Alicia up again and dropped her on her hip once more, and casually talked with Catherine about how much fun they were going to have catching up over the next couple weeks.

Sara politely nodded and smiled. It was taking all the energy she had to not break down in front of her friends and was looking forward to the next moment she was able to have to herself.

- - - - -

Warrick and Nick had finally stopped calling him after an hour of him not picking up his phone. Greg had considered turning it off completely but since he was on-call for that night he knew he couldn't. Every few seconds his phone would beep with a new voicemail but he didn't bother listening to it. He would later, maybe, but for now he just stared at it from across his kitchen counter, flashing and beeping at him.

But when Greg had gone storming out of the lab earlier after punching Nick, a memory had come flooding back to him that took place before the accident. He remembered punching Nick at a crime scene over something stupid. He shook it off though and really hadn't felt like dwelling on it at the time because of how enraged Nick had just made him. Sometime later when he was calm, he would go back and try to focus on the memory and find himself oddly satisfied with having punched Nick twice now. At the moment though, all Greg could think about was the lab's recent betrayal.

How could they? How could they all just _lie_ to him like that? Keep a secret like that from him? A secret that he had the full right to know about, be included in. Now that he knew Sara and Alicia were in town, all the courage he had built up just to call her was gone. He knew at some point he would have to see her, he would want to see Alicia of course, but it was suddenly too much. The idea of talking to her after not hearing her voice for so long...seeing Alicia, his little girl, on the verge of turning three years old.

It was too much. His brain was spinning, officially overloaded. Greg's brain surged with anger towards his team for essentially lying to him; the reality of seeing his girls again terrified him beyond words and those two emotions, combined with pure exhaustion, was about to push him over a cliff. If anything else happened to him in the next twenty-four hours that caught him off guard, he thought he might just _snap_.

His phone rang, breaking the silence and Greg finally lost it. He cried out with a painful, gut-wrenching scream and slid to the floor, grabbing his hair in both his fists. When his scream died down, he took a deep breath before screaming again, his head dropping to his chest as Greg began to cry for the first time in a long time. He screamed over and over, faintly hearing his phone ringing again and again. The tears were falling down his face at a rapid pace, soaking his shirt and pants. And he just kept crying hard, stomach and lungs aching. Sobbing. Pouring his heart out to no one over and over.

Of course that was when Greg decided to listen to his voicemail–all three of them.

_"You have three new messages. First message: Hey Greg it's Nick. Listen man, I'm really sorry about what happened. You weren't supposed to find out like that, honest to goodness. I was gonna talk to you later, after shift, over a couple drinks. You have to understand something though Greg..."_

_Beep._

_"Message has been deleted. Next message: Greggo, c'mon man, pick up your phone. I'm not mad about you hittin' me, really. I totally deserved it. No one's gonna report you, though I can't guarantee Hodges won't go run his mouth to Ecklie or possibly even Grissom but Warrick is gonna talk to him. So far, from what I can see, it seems to be going well. He'll keep his mouth shut if he knows what's best for him. Anyway, I really just want to talk to you about this. If you knew the whole story..."_

_Beep._

_"Message has been deleted. Next message: Greg, it's Warrick. Now I don't know what happened really, and it's none of my business. It's between you and Nick. But I _do_ know what you must be going through right now and I just wanted you to know I gotcha covered for the rest of shift tonight. I got Hodges set up with getting all of your prints, DNA and trace taken care of for tonight and that's gonna take a couple hours anyway so I'm just gonna send him home after he collects the results and logs all of your evidence. Listen, if you need anyone to talk to..."_

_Beep._

_"Message has been deleted. You have no more messages. Main menu..."_

Greg tossed his phone back on the counter and continued crying right where he left off, but no longer had the energy to scream. He dropped back against the wall for support and soon found himself back on the ground. Ten minutes later, Greg was finally able to catch his breath and heard his phone still ringing from up on the counter. His sadness had fueled his rage by now and he pushed himself off the ground, snatching his phone without even checking who it was.

"What?!" he screamed, panting from his breakdown.

_"I heard what happened at the lab. Sounds like you could use a drink–and maybe a friend."_

It took Greg a moment to recognize the voice, but when he did, needless to say he was shocked. "Brass?"

_"Is that a yes?"_

"Uh, um, yeah. That would be cool."

_"Good, cause I'm sitting outside your place."_

Greg was taken aback for a moment but was thankful beyond comprehension. "Ok, yeah. Give me a second. And, uh, is it just you?"

He heard Brass laugh on the other end. _"I know Warrick and Nick have been trying to reach you but they haven't sent me as an undercover spy I promise. I didn't even tell them I was coming to get you. They think I went home to do, well, I don't know. Whatever it is they think I do when I'm not out there saving the world one bad guy at a time."_

Greg's lips curled into a grin. "Well I have heard some interesting stories about what you do in your free time..."

_"Whatever Sanders. Just when I thought I was beginning to miss your demented sense of humor. Now c'mon, I'm itching for a Jack and Coke right about now. Hurry up."_

Greg flipped his phone shut and darted into the bathroom, splashing some water onto his face. He changed into a new shirt and pulled a random sweatshirt over his head, dashing out his front door to meet Brass. He dropped into the front seat and flashed Brass his Sanders' grin. If Brass noticed he had been crying just minutes ago, he didn't say anything.

The ride to the bar was silent. They went to the Copper Penny, a small bar far from the lights and noise. It was a fairly big place and was surprisingly pretty packed for a Wednesday night. The dim orange lights of the bar were soothing to Greg as he followed Brass to the back of the bar to a small booth in the corner. A petite woman greeted them moments later, smiling at Brass.

"Detective Brass, you up for the usual?"

"Make it two. Heavy on the Jack darlin'. You know how I like it." She smiled at them both and walked off to the bar.

"Darlin', Brass?" Greg scoffed. "I think someone has been hanging out with Nick too much."

"Whatever Sanders," grumbled Brass. "You better watch yourself or you can pick up the tab."

The two men fell into an awkward silence until their drinks arrived. Obviously Brass was a regular, because the waitress came over with two drinks each. "I'll be back over in twenty minutes if you lovely boys want to order any food. " She stared at Greg for a second too long before disappearing again into the crowd that was slowly forming.

Greg savored the burning taste of the alcohol as it spilled down his throat. It had been a long time since he last had a drink, and he almost missed it. He took another long swallow before looking at Brass.

"Spill kid, what's going on?"

Greg shifted his eyes back down to his drink, swallowing more of it. "Nothin' really, Jim."

"Nothin'? You sock Nick in the face in Grissom's office with all of the lab watching, storm out two hours early and you tell me it's nothing? I used to be a CSI too Greg; I'm not stupid."

"Did you know Sara was coming back?"

Brass was silent for a minute, taking a swig of his drink. "Ya, everyone knew. And I'm sorry you were kept out of the loop and all but..."

Greg put up a hand to silence him, finishing off his first glass and reaching for his second. He could feel the alcohol in his stomach, warm and biting, the foggy haze beginning to creep in over his brain. "It isn't even that, Brass. I have gotten over the fact that the entire department, that can't keep a secret if their lives depended on it, didn't manage to spill the beans to me until Hodges told me at the end of last shift. How did I not know?"

Brass shrugged at him, casually sipping on his drink. "You weren't supposed to Greg. It was supposed to kind of be a surprise. We weren't sure if you were ready for that; ready to see Alicia for the first time since she was practically born, and dealing with Sara being back in your life. The plans for this were set in motion months ago Greg, back when you first started recovering your memory. Life has been hectic for all of us, especially you. We all wanted to support you and her, but we didn't know what to do Greg.

"You also have to understand, Greg, that Sara made Grissom promise not to tell anyone until she knew for sure that she was coming out here. None of us found out until two weeks ago. It may seem so easy to see what the right thing to do was, but it was so much more complicated than that. You don't know what has been going on in Sara's life; what brought her back here. What turmoil she has been going through in her own life. Yeah, she may have been the one to run away three years ago Greg, but she was left with a permanent reminder of you and your love for her, whether you remember any of that. In a sense Greg, you were able to move on. Sara has been living with her mistakes _everyday_. I'm not calling Alicia a mistake Sanders, I'm just saying she has to look at your pretty girl's face and see you. That can't be easy for anyone. At least you don't really remember what happened to you; Sara remembers hearing the sound of that gun being shot. She remembers the sickening _thud_ of your head on those stairs."

"Who said not remembering was easier than remembering?"

"I never said it was. It's just _different_ Sanders, and you have to respect that."

He knew he had been selfish, Greg did. But hearing his exact thoughts coming out of Brass's mouth made him finally realize it. "I just wish someone had told me before I found out on accident. I wish someone had taken me out, like you are now, and talked to me about it. Let me get all my fears out there, ya know? Verbalize my concerns; talk about how Sara's been running circles in my mind for a month or so. I just wished someone cared about me. I know that sounds selfish, but that's how I feel. I don't feel like anyone took me into account for all of this."

Brass finished off his drink with a smile, signaling to their waitress that he was ready to eat and she seemed to already know what he wanted and headed to the kitchen. "Greg, do you really think you would have? Do you really think that if the opportunity arose for you to spill your guts, you would have? Do you think you would have told Nick or Warrick about all your fears of seeing Sara?"

Greg just nodded sadly and continued to drink away his sorrows. Brass thought Greg looked like a kicked puppy and just felt bad. _Poor kid_.

"Then talk to me Greg. As pretty as you are, you need to earn this date because I can't accept any sexual acts from you as a form of payment. Goes against my moral code of gettin' any on the first date." Brass cracked a smile and reached for his second drink, waiting for Greg to answer him.

It was a few minutes though, until Greg had built up the courage to talk. He downed the rest of his second drink and slammed the glass down on the table before staring into what he knew would be a long-winded spiel.

"So you know how I started remembering stuff over the past couple months? Well, I got back a lot of memories from Sara and I before my accident. And I think I got them all back, which is really cool. I remember a lot of stuff. I feel like me again, or what I think is me, for the first time since forever. I would say for as long as I can remember but that's the thing Brass: how will I know if I ever remember everything? Will I ever know if I got all of my memories back? How am I supposed to tell if I'm back to normal if I don't remember how normal feels like? Because this accident changed me Brass–I know that even if everything were to go back to the way things were, I'm not the same person I was all those years ago. I've been through a lot emotionally and mentally and physically. I feel like I'm finally on the right track though. For the first time in a long time.

"But I remember what it was like waking up and now know almost everything. And that was the scariest feeling, Brass. Waking up with a tube down my throat, with some strange woman holding my hand, calling me 'Greg' and you want to know what that moment was like? It was like I was born a thirty-year-old man. I had lived almost a third of my life and I had nothing to show for it except for a bunch of scars and people telling me who I was, trying to make me someone I wasn't sure if I was anymore, didn't remember being, or even wanted to be. But Sara was there thru all of it, and then Alicia was born and then they were gone and I was back to not knowing who I was. I had identified myself with Sara and our future child and suddenly, the person who knew who I _really_ was left me. Someone who knew me better than I knew me was gone. And it killed me Brass."

Greg took a deep breath as their waitress came back with their food and another two drinks each for him and Brass. Without hesitating, Greg chugged half of his drink and that fog had officially settled over his brain; his fingertips were tingling and he forgot how much he loved getting drunk. He shoved a couple buffalo wings in his mouth and washed it down with another swig from his drink. "So anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah, the second death of my soul. So Sara leaves with what was my entire world at that point. I was lost. I hadn't begun to remember anything myself. All I knew was what people had told me, what little I had retained after that accident. And then what happens? I start losing my memory again! My brain has been so emotionally _fucked up_ that it says to me 'Screw you Greg, you'll never be happy!' and I start losing the memories of the life I had finally begun to rebuild. So I go see some shrink, right? And I finally feel like I'm making progress.

"I was making so much progress in fact that my brain decides to not fuck with me any more and starts giving me my memories back. Like that night Nick was over, when I remembered climbing down a storm drain. And then little things like Holly Gribbs' death. Grissom turning off my music. You know, little things at first. One morning I wake up and remember my entire childhood. I remember the lab explosion. I remember the first time I kissed–"

Greg's voice betrayed him as he remembered that moment on the rooftop. How, after that moment, memories of his love and relationship and dedication to Sara came flooding back to him like the Hoover Dam had suddenly burst. He hadn't told anyone yet; hadn't said anything about how scared he was when that day came and he actually comprehended how much he had changed from the 'Greg' Sara had fallen in love with. Greg didn't want to tell anyone how he just _knew_ he had gotten all his memories of Sara back and how much it pained him. In his heart, Greg knew he would never be able to be that same person to her. He knew he had lost Sara forever.

Brass, knowing he was about to grab for his friend's hand and tell him everything was ok, leaned back in the booth instead and swallowed the rest of his second drink. He could tell that Greg had much more to say but Brass wasn't ready to rush him. And to be honest with himself, everything he just heard was overwhelming. Brass would never say he could understand or relate to Sanders but as he looked at his friend, looking broken in every bit of his appearance, he really became to grasp the concept of having no clue as to where he could attempt to start understanding. If that place actually existed somewhere.

But Greg never said anything else. Never finished telling Brass what he remembered. And Brass never pushed him. He knew for a fact that he had accomplished much more with Greg than any other team member had thus far and he wasn't about to go bragging about it either. None of the CSIs could probably tell but Brass held many of their deep secrets and fears; no one talked about how Detective Jim Brass was such a good secret-keeper either. His locked lips were just as much of a secret as what colleagues and friends had told him over the years. And people didn't know how good Brass was at getting the story out of you.

The two men sat in silence, nibbling on their food that had long gone cold. Brass sipped on his fourth glass of Jack and Coke as he watched Greg's numb fingers fiddle with his wallet, counting his stashed bills in his head meticulously, over and over. His chapped lips moved as he mouthed the dollars amount, carefully adding it all up again and again. He bit his lip ever so slightly before grabbing the nearest employing and ordering two shots of tequila and another J&C.

And Brass just kept drinking. Watching. Thinking. Wondering. But above all, _praying_ that whatever demons Greg was battling this time, that they wouldn't take him from them again.

- - - - -

Sara walked beside Catherine and behind Grissom thru the glass hallways of the Las Vegas Crime Lab. Alicia was lagging behind Sara, taking in all the whirring and beeping and machines around her. Sara kept tugging at Alicia's hand to keep up but to no avail. In the end, Sara grabbed Alicia up off the ground and carried her towards Grissom's office. She tried not to look through the walls at the techs, at the dayshift CSIs working or the swing shift employees who had come in early. Tried not to pretend to be who she really was; attempted not to recognize anyone. Give no one the chance to realize who she was.

In fact, Sara was trying so hard to be invisible that she nearly walked into her two friends who had come to an abrupt halt at the break room door. Inside were Warrick and Nick in what looked like a half-assed, 'I'm too exhausted for this and so are you' argument about something. Nick had a giant ice pack pressed to his face and was using his free hand to wildly gesture all over, but mainly he just pointed at Warrick, poking him every few moments for dramatic effect. Warrick, naturally, pushed back and physically stood taller and bigger than Nick. Neither of the men looked prepared to step down and everyone who was watching–which, at this point, was anybody within a hundred yards of the lounge–knew it. What the four newcomers weren't aware of is that this fight had been going on since Grissom had left to pick up Sara.

Grissom knew about what had happened with Greg. Informed Catherine on the way to the airport and broke the news to Sara in the car, who responded with a slight shiver and nauseous stare. But what had occurred between his departure and his arrival again was beyond him. This entire situation had blown way out of proportion in a matter of hours but luckily Grissom had been able to diffuse the situation before it ever had time to reach Ecklie's all-hearing ears.

But while Grissom merely pondered in the hallway, Catherine went barging right in and declared that the two of them grow up before turning to reveal Sara wandering into the break room with Alicia in tow. Nick and Warrick were floored at how cute Greg's spawn was actually capable of, which was probably due in large part to being jumbled up with Sara's genetics. Her likeness to Greg was astonishing but her stare was one that the boys hadn't been subjected to in almost three years: that infamous Sidle look. It wasn't a glaring look Alicia gave them, but it was far from any kind of gentle gaze. It was just a look that apparently Alicia had inherited from her mother that could make those two grown men squirm in their spots.

After a long and confusing round of introductions (in which Alicia had asked each of them if they were her daddy), the six of them headed out for lunch at the nearest greasy diner they could find. Nick recapped the eventful afternoon for Sara and everyone seemed to get a kick out of how much Hodges and whined and complained after his decomp. Sara enjoyed listening to her old friends rag on Hodges, a man who apparently hadn't changed much since she had seen him years ago. It felt good to be back in an odd sense, but Sara felt at ease for the first time all day.

Brooke joined them after the first round of coffee and finally met _the_ Sara everyone had been talking about for years and was struck speechless at Alicia's resemblance to Greg. Sara was pleasantly surprised about how quickly she warmed up to the girl who "took her spot" per-say, but the girl was smart and could keep up with the boys it appeared. Eventually Alicia fell asleep on Sara's lap and the table fell silent.

And they talked. All of them did. Sara sat back and listened to Nick talk about Greg remembering. Warrick talking about how Greg was growing by leaps and bounds in the field. Catherine replaying the scene on the roof she had with Greg a while back. Sara digested everything Grissom had to tell her, about his after-shift vent sessions he had with Greg. Brooke, not really having anything to add to a situation she knew nothing about, just listened and attempted to pick up on what had happened. Who this Sara woman really was. Tried to figure out exactly where Greg's memory had gone, why Nick had been punched, and what exactly Alicia was: an intentional child caught in the cross-hairs of a parents' rocky marriage or the love-child from a one-night stand that had somehow led to Greg and punching and people leaving and a whole lot of hub-bub that was never talked about.

Brooke glanced at Sara's left hand and saw no wedding ring, no engagement right, not even a tan line. Then she looked up and saw Sara studying her from across the table and Brooke decided to avert her eyes elsewhere.

While the rest of her team talked amongst themselves, she munched on her English muffin and tried to digest in her brain what exactly was going on. If push came to shove, she would just ask one of the boys. She loved Catherine and all, but trying to get a members-only story out of a girl was impossible. It wasn't worth the time or trouble. This wasn't about office gossip or having an invite to this exclusive party, but something had obviously rocked her colleagues and friends year ago that seemed to be an issue that was gonna be around lately and she just wanted to not be left in the dark. Whatever had happened three years ago recently seemed to be brought up again and now that Sara was here, Brooke knew this wasn't going to go away or end any time soon. Brooke knew enough about the unspoken tale to know that it had sunken it's ugly fangs deep into everyone and hadn't ever really let go of them.

She had heard brief whisperings about a tragic event years ago in the lab, but never any details. She had heard about one of their colleagues up and leaving one night with Greg's flesh and blood. _That much_ she knew about. Nothing else though. All she knew was common knowledge around the techs and investigators from all three shifts. Suddenly though, now that this mysterious Sara woman was sitting before her in the real and now, Brooke wasn't satisfied with just being ignorant to the fact that something bigger was happening and she was being left out .

Being the mature adult she was, Brooke sent Nick a text message. He was sitting diagonal from her, perched beside Sara. She chose her words carefully as she typed the message.

_So is anyone gonna tell me what's going on or am I going to be the odd man out for all of this?_

Luckily, Nick's phone had been on silent and he casually reached for it as he finished voicing his opinion to Catherine about something. Brooke had tuned everyone else out a long time ago and was just watching Nick's face as his eyes scanned the message and his fingers flew over his keys as he responded.

_It's nothing against you, Brooke, really. Sara coming back brings up years of dirt from a long time ago. And I'm not really sure if it's my place to tell you the story, or anyone else's besides Sara and Greg. You just...there is a reason no one talks about it B._

Ask Greg or, even worse, Sara?

_I know Nick. I'm a CSI just like you, remember? Just because no one talks about it doesn't mean I don't still hear about it. Can I at least get a hint? Maybe just a little bite of information so I can figure it out on my own?_

Nick sat for a moment rereading the text message over again. He seemed to ponder for a second. His eyes darted to Sara and then back to his screen, hastily sending her a response.

_I can't Brooke. Please just understand. This isn't like a bad arrest or a rough case or even office politics. This river ran deep for a long time and swept a lot of people up in it. For me, B, just drop it._

She couldn't just let it be anymore. And now she was getting angry.

_I thought you trusted me Nick. I thought I was a part of this team Nick. But apparently I thought wrong. I will find out what happened one way or another. Just because you won't tell me doesn't mean someone else won't._

Nick read his incoming message and smiled.

_No they won't. This lab may gossip when it comes to drama, but not a single person in this lab who was around three years ago will open their mouth and tell you shit. Keep going Brooke, and Sara will find out what you're doing and she will NOT hesitate in putting some stranger in their place for meddling in her personal business. I can guarantee that will happen. Maybe, if there ever is a right moment, you will find out the truth Brooke. But for now–forget about it. You understand?_

With that, Brooke stormed out.


End file.
